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Comment by narrator | Hacker News Reader

This is just a bunch of bluster. The FED isn't the SEC. They don't have a law enforcement division or anything like that with guns and badges.

Some guy got in a car accident(Lewis v. United States)[1] with some Federal Reserve employee and tried to sue under the Federal Tort Claims Act, which allows the federal government to be sued for certain things, like car accidents, as they are normally subject to sovereign immunity. The judge said this didn't apply to the Federal Reserve because they aren't a federal agency. There is actually a long interesting argument in the case by the judge about why the Fed is not a federal agency. They can hire and fire employees at will, their workers are not in the civil service pension program, they get workers compensation, they receive no appropriated funds from congress, they can sue and be sued under their own name, etc.

[1] https://openjurist.org/680/f2d/1239/lewis-v-united-states

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The Fed absolutely has regulatory authority over a pretty big piece of the banking system much the same way the SEC has authority over the investment industry.[1] But more importantly, the Fed has leverage over most of the financial system: any institution that wants acccess to the discount window is going to have to do what the Fed says. And if they all have to comply, their clients will have to, too. OCC, FDIC, and the Fed also work closely with one another. Police force or not, if you want to be a bank you’re going to have to comply with their requirements.

Edit- More info about the Fed’s supervisory authority here: https://www.federalreserve.gov/supervisionreg/enforcement-ac...

[1]Fed enforcement actions: https://www.federalreserve.gov/supervisionreg/enforcementact...

I don't think Dogecoin is scared of losing access to the discount window!

They are more like a public utility that is private, but has some amount of government oversight. Controlling the ability to create money is pretty impressive and they can cut people off from that, so that is a lot of power. They can't arrest people or criminally charge people like the SEC can though.

No, but they’re scared of losing access to wire transfers. Or at least they should be. So if the Fed tells banks they can’t transact with or accept proceeds from the sale of Dogecoin they will cease transacting with and accepting proceeds that appear to be from the sale of Dogecoin. And then Doge will be well and truly fucked. You can’t get to the moon if you can’t get any money.

And for the record, the SEC can’t arrest or bring criminal charges, either. They’re civil enforcement only.

> They don't have a law enforcement division or anything like that with guns and badges.

What's interesting is that they're probably one of the only few federal entities without at least a small attached police force. Even NASA and the Department of Education have their own police.

A federal reserve police force would open some interesting additional avenues for affecting interest rates outside of open market operations...

(this is a joke)

But they do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Police

Wow. I didn't know about that. Turns out they were not really a federal police force, and could only operate on Federal Reserve Property until September 11th, 2001.

Which is a good thing because it also makes them more immune to political pressure to overstimulate the economy.

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