PhillyDeals: A better way to regulate the money supply?

The

Federal Reserve

system was set up in 1913 to cushion us from the financial blowups that used to wipe out banks, businesses, and jobs every 10 or 20 years.

Since then, we've had two enormous blowups, nearly 80 years apart. Time to start over?

People who say private interests control the Fed note that its 12 regional banks are run by boards dominated by businessmen and bankers.

But the Fed's greatest power resides, not with local Fed board chairmen like Tasty Baking Co. boss Charles Pizzi in Philadelphia, but in Washington with the Federal Reserve Board of Governors chairman, currently Ben S. Bernanke, who was picked by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

The Fed's independence from Congress is supposed to enable its leaders to stand up to politicians' demands that they overheat the economy to please voters. Former Chairman Paul Volcker kept interest rates high in 1980 to break inflation, though it helped defeat his fellow Democrat Jimmy Carter, making Ronald Reagan president.

But later, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan believed in cheap money and limited bank regulation; he thought markets fixed themselves, and asset inflation couldn't be regulated. So the banks blew up.

Now Congress wants to fix things. Blank Rome L.L.P.'s latest Financial Reform Watch newsletter describes Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd's 1,100-page Restoring American Financial Security Act, which would strip Fed and Treasury regulatory powers and give them to one big new agency, "the most aggressive" plan to date.

Does Congress have wisdom the Fed lacks?

Conergy Projects Inc.

, Paoli, is building a $5.6 million solar-electricity plant for

Aqua America Inc

. in a bend of the Brandywine, at Aqua's West Chester-area waterworks in East Bradford Township.

The solar collectors will be funded partly by the company, partly by $1 million in a federal stimulus grant funneled through the state, and partly by tax credits, says Joseph Thurwanger, Aqua manager of capital planning.

Thanks to those taxpayer subsidies, Aqua figures the plant will pay for itself within six years, while saving the equivalent of 3,000 barrels of oil annually.

The "solar farm" will generate up to 1.1 megawatts, which would be more than enough to power the adjoining Aqua Pennsylvania water-treatment plant - except the sun doesn't shine at night, or every day.

In reality, Thurwanger says, Aqua estimates it will cut energy expenses about $77,000, or 26 percent of the yearly electric bill.

Aqua chief executive officer Nicholas DeBenedictis, Aqua Pennsylvania president Karl Kyriss, U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts (R., Pa.), and other politicians will break ground today at 11 for the solar collectors.

The site, an old sediment pond, "is not suitable for building," says Thurwanger, adding that Aqua is looking to have more plants like it at its other locations.

I asked

Ken Weinstein

, Mount Airy developer and diner owner, how many public and private agencies had to be roped together to win the use of the

Bathey House

in East Falls for his second Trolley Car restaurant and a bike-and-skate center.

He sent me a flow chart.

Fairmount Park owns the property. The park's historic preservation trust has an interest in the old bathhouse, which Weinstein says has been vacant for 40 years and was targeted just 13 years ago for redevelopment.

Developer Brinton Partners collected funding from the Philadelphia Commerce Department and the Reinvestment Fund to redevelop the diner; the Merchants Fund also invested.

East Falls Development Corp. collected support from the William Penn Foundation, the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, and the state to open the East Falls Gateway Center in the building.

And those are just some of the players.

Weinstein says the groups will spend $625,000 fixing up the property to open in the spring. Mayor Nutter's expected for the groundbreaking today at 11.