Capital Markets

The Post about the draft of the financial regulation bill. They see positive points as regard to enhancing the Fed's independence. However, they also mention political pitfalls:

The Washington Post: Politicizing the Fed? Mr. Dodd's financial reform plan: Some good ideas and some flaws, November 11, 2009

"He has a point. The key to a central bank's power is credibility, which in turn hinges on the perception and reality that it is focused on setting interest rates and not doing the short-term bidding of politicians. Under Paul A. Volcker, the Fed broke the back of inflation in the 1980s through sustained high interest rates. This put the country in recession and made the Fed unpopular. It could withstand the pressure because it was so clearly acting within its core technical and legal competencies. A lesson of the current crisis, by contrast, is that mission creep is not good for political independence. The more the Fed becomes enmeshed in lending to particular companies or regulating particular industries, the more it opens itself up to criticism and lobbying. This is true regardless of whether the Fed's decisions are necessary and proper, as they have been in this emergency.

In that sense, it might be a good idea to assign the Fed's regulatory responsibilities elsewhere as Mr. Dodd proposes. In other respects, however, Mr. Dodd's bill seems to increase the Fed's politicization." read more about the aspects of politicization in The Washington Post