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Congress created the Fed in 1913 to prevent financial panics such as runs on banks and set it up as an independent entity. Its powers grew in 1933 and 1935. Although the Fed is subject to congressional oversight, its decisions do not have to be ratified by the president or Congress. Fed officials are not paid with money appropriated by Congress.

It has a seven-member board of governors, led now by Bernanke, and headquarters in Washington. Fed members are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. There are two vacancies currently.

The system includes 12 Reserve Banks in major cities. These banks have their own boards of directors, two-thirds of whom are elected by commercial banks in the region and one-third by the Fed board in Washington.

With this combined government-financial industry heritage, the Fed serves as the nation's central bank. It manages the money supply, sets or influences certain key short-term interest rates, engages in open market buys and sales of government securities, and oversees and provides financial services to banks.

Because of the Fed's direct influence over interest rates, the money supply, and the larger economy, some have called the Fed chairman the second most powerful job in Washington after the president.

Economist Lawrence Chimerine, president of Radnor Consulting in Philadelphia, faults the Fed, particularly under Greenspan, for not paying more attention to what was happening in mortgage markets and to the rise in subprime lending. He said Bernanke's Fed complicated the situation by ''raising rates too much and being too slow to start reducing them.''

Still, Chimerine said, ''I don't think there's any question Bernanke did the right thing'' with the recent moves. ''If Bear Stearns had gone bankrupt and if this credit crunch continued to spread, we would have had a real mess.''

Alice Rivlin, a former Fed vice chairman, said she does not think Bernanke exceeded his authority, even though he acted under creaky legal provisions not used since the 1930s. ''The Fed has been very aggressive and imaginative, and has taken very strong actions to get the credit markets functioning again,'' she said. ''And that's good.''

Anthony Ryan, assistant treasury secretary for financial markets, said the current framework for regulating financial institutions ''is a reflection of literally decades of evolution. And we have a very fragmented regulatory structure.''

Before addressing any changes, ''we need to continue to make sure we work through the current challenges in the markets. This has to be job one,'' he said in an interview with C-SPAN to air Sunday. ''And the actions by the Federal Reserve to help facilitate orderliness and stability is very, very important.''

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