Meet the Fed, the latest superpower to emerge from Washington's shadows
This past week, in the midst of many competing events, the nation's news-aware and money-savvy cohorts gave their undivided attention to a professorial-looking fellow calmly reading from a piece of paper.
The bespectacled reader was Jerome Powell, who bears a weighty title as chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Bank. While he is unknown to most Americans, his economic power is sometimes said to rival that of the president himself.
And while few voters may be thinking of Powell as they go to the polls in November, all will be coping with economic conditions strongly influenced by Powell's little-known institution.
The Fed is the latest Washington power center trying to smile for its closeup — caught in the bright glare of contemporary media attention. Like the Supreme Court, which has been barricaded behind new fencing since it overturned the federal protection for abortion rights, the Fed governors have preferred to exercise their extraordinary authority quietly in near anonymity.
The same could be said for top decisionmakers at the Food and Drug
