Kashkari Named Head of Minneapolis Fed

On Tuesday, Neel T. Kashkari, 42, who ran against California Governor Jerry Brown in 2014 and lost by nearly 20 percentage points, was named the next president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

Kashkari served in the Treasury Department under both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, and supervised the government’s bailout of the banking industry in 2008-09.

With the appointment, Kashkari will take Minneapolis Fed President Narayana R. Kocherlakota’s place at the Federal Reserve as well as his position on the Federal Open Market Committee, according to The New York Times.

All three men who have been named to head regional reserve banks in 2015 spent time working at Goldman Sachs, including Kashkari. In March, the Philadelphia Fed appointed former Goldman trustee Patrick Harker; in August, the Dallas Fed picked former Goldman vice-president Robert Kaplan. Kashkari was also a vice-president at Goldman as well as an advisor to Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr.

12 regional reserve banks exist in all; in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Kansas City, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Richmond, San Francisco, and St. Louis.

As stated by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond:

Reserve Banks hold the cash reserves of depository institutions and make loans to them. They move currency and coin into and out of circulation, and collect and process millions of checks each day. They provide checking accounts for the Treasury, issue and redeem government securities, and act in other ways as fiscal agent for the U.S. government. They supervise and examine member banks for safety and soundness. The Reserve Banks also participate in the activity that is the primary responsibility of the Federal Reserve System, the setting of monetary policy.