[taylodl]

What do you propose? Every party involved has the freedom to associate with whomever they want and the right to conduct business with them. If Yellen was doing a lousy job then presumably far fewer people would be willing to pay her a speaker fee. But hey, if people want to pay her to speak then that's their business.

[dtech]

The problem is it just means money == political power, which purportedly democracies try to not have.

[taylodl]

The Fed isn't the government and Yellen isn't a politician. Those statements aren't technicalities, they are facts. The Fed was vested by Congress to be the U.S.' banker due to Congress' abysmal history of failure managing money policy.

As far as money == political power, start with campaign finance reform. That's the vehicle being used to "buy" politicians.