so I was listening to some of the testimony that Greenspan was giving to the Senate today and a senator from California asked him as question that was basically:
"what is the central bank going to do about the disparity in lending rates between minorities and whites?"
To which, Howard responded something to the effect of: "We can only enforce the laws as far as the congress will let us go".  The senator was not pleased and went on a 5 minute soapbox about how terrible the situation with minority lending is.

I really don't think the central bank has all that much control over that level of detail on the retail side of banking...

That,s what I really liked about Jesse Ventura as the governor of MN - he stood by his belief, even if it wasn't popular.