The Federal Reserve System is a strange, ungainly beast. Its strangest and ungainliest appendages are the regional Federal Reserve Banks, 12 technically private institutions scattered unevenly across the nation. The Federal Reserve Bank presidents are chosen by boards of local citizens -- although not, since the Dodd-Frank Act, by local bankers -- and are paid on a scale that actual government officials below the level of U.S. president can only dream of (unless you count state-university football and basketball coaches as government officials). Yet these well-remunerated private citizens get to help set the nation’s ... (full story)