“The Fed chairman may be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, but his real bosses are on Wall Street.” This isn’t the ranting of some crazed radical; it is a line from a column in the Washington Post‘s Outlook section, by Richard Yamarone, an investment analyst.

While I probably never would have phrased it so bluntly, I think that Mr. Yamarone is largely correct. It is worth reflecting on this one. The interests of Wall Street investors are not necessarily the same as the interests of the public as a whole. For example, big wage increases, that come out of corporate profits, would be very welcome news to the vast majority of the population, since they depend on wages for the bulk of their income. Needless to say, lower profits are not welcome news on Wall Street.

The fact that we have an arm of the federal government that answers to the special interests on Wall Street, rather than the larger public, should be cause for concern in a democracy.

–Dean Baker

Dean Baker is senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. He is the author of several books, including Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer. Read more about Dean.