In honor of the Federal Open Market Committee releasing their 2008 transcripts, here’s a House Banking Committee hearing from 1973 in which my favorite Congressman, Democratic and populist Wright Patman, asks why the Dallas Fed needs so many ping pong balls (h/t Chris Whalen).

This level of spending isn’t surprising, and I’m guessing it’s not very different today. The Fed budget isn’t on the books, and there’s very little oversight of the reserve banks. The Fed board in DC has some really nice rooms for meeting, but the bathrooms can be kind of gross and most of the architecture can seem fairly DC bureaucratic bland. But the New York Fed? The only time I was there I saw a gold-plated frame with a giant flat screen televisions inside tuned to CNBC. In the dining area for employees there was a whole separate lavish table just for gourmet cakes. Big gummit.
Anyway, before Ron Paul, it was Patman who advocated aggressively for an audit of the Federal Reserve. These two were about as different politically as you can imagine, though they were both from Texas.
The full hearing is here. Patman did some righteous hearings.