They do a lot of work? Thats great who does the fed answer too?
That's a tricky question. Alan Greenspan seemed to answer to no one but himself - Bernanke seems to answer to Obama and also to congress.
A central bank is a fantastic tool that a government can use - right now, The Fed is in the hands of the private bankers who use it for loans to themselves at very low interest rates so that they can loan that same money to consumers and producers alike at high interest rates and pocket the spread. A classic example of public risk and private profit.
If The Congress were truly interested in creating jobs, they would turn The Fed into The Credit Union of America for basic banking and loans against durable goods, real property and entrepreneurial means of production and service and let the banksters play with derivatives and whatever else they can put enough lipstick on to get a price worth getting.