A reader forwarded me this story.

Officials with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have informed Bernanke about a plan that would have been unheard-of in the past: a general examination of the US financial system. The IMF’s board of directors has ruled that a so-called Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) is to be carried out in the United States. It is nothing less than an X-ray of the entire US financial system.

The gist of the story is “how the mighty have fallen,” that the Fed and other regulators would have to submit to this. Another spin might be that it is the IMF that has suffered the biggest decline in relevance and status over the last several years, and this is a desperate ploy by bureaucrats to try to justify their existence.