Fate of fed

Chris Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, published his proposals to restructure American financial regulation, which include a plan to take away many of the Federal Reserve’s powers as a banking supervisor and place them in a new agency. Mr Dodd wants the central bank to return to its “core functions” of setting monetary policy and being the lender of last resort. Last month his counterpart in the House of Representatives, Barney Frank, unveiled a plan, drafted with the help of Treasury officials, that would expand the Fed’s powers.