The Fed also sat on the sidelines during the housing bubble. Many Fed officials supported the explosion in subprime lending, and they seemed to look the other way as foreclosures soared in the latter half of 2006.

Even at the height of the crisis, Fed governors rarely mentioned consumer protection. Indeed, it wasn’t until two Democratic representatives, William Delahunt of Massachusetts and Brad Miller of North Carolina, proposed an independent consumer agency on March 10, 2009, that the Fed began to talk the talk of consumer protection; it’s probably no coincidence that the first public mention of consumer protection regulation by Fed officials in the entire aftermath of the financial crisis came on March 19, 2009, when a Fed governor, Daniel Tarullo, spoke about it at a hearing.

At this point, the Fed, and in particular its chairman, Ben Bernanke, seemed to find religion. Last July, it proposed rule revisions that would simplify the fine print on mortgages and highlight risky features of a loan. Two months later, it said that credit cards should be subject to similar regulatory reform, and Mr. Bernanke followed in October with a proposal for a council of risk regulators that would also oversee consumer issues.

It wasn’t all talk: according to its own data, the Fed’s enforcement actions against banks and lenders also began increasing over the past year, particularly after Congress took up the idea of an independent regulator. From a post-crisis average of eight announced enforcement actions per month, the Fed doubled its announcements to 16 actions per month once an independent agency was proposed.

But this new seriousness doesn’t mean the Fed is the right place for a consumer protection agency. For one, the Fed is above all concerned with inflation and other systemic risks to the economy; given a conflict between avoiding threats to the economy and consumer protection, is it reasonable or fair to expect it to choose the latter?