Public meetings are rare, and dissent isn't disclosed
(NEWSER) - The Federal Reserve has been busily rewriting the rules of the financial system for years now, and it's been doing almost all of it behind closed doors. The Fed has held 47 votes on new regulations since Dodd-Frank was passed in July 2010, and only two of those were at public meetings; in the rest, votes were cast via email, and the details of those votes disclosed to the public only last week when the Wall Street Journal requested them. The Journal notes that while the closed meetings are legal, they do represent a sea change: In the 1980s and 1990s, the Fed held as many as 31 public meetings annually. More»