Comment by acd | Hacker News Reader

Comment by acd | Hacker News Reader

The Federal reserve was created by senator Aldrich who's daughter was married to the banker Rockefeller. The Federal reserve is privately owned by the member banks themselves among others JP Morgan, City bank. 97% percent of the money in circulation is debt. 1971 Nixon decoupled the Dollar from the Gold standard, essentially creating a FIAT currency. During the 1990s Allan Greenspan chairman of the Federal reserve set the capital requirements for new loans to near zero in an effort to let the market regulate itself. With no Gold standard to limit the amount of debt it grows exponentially.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Federal_Reserve... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abby_Aldrich_Rockefeller

You can see the decoupling here GDP vs median income http://lanekenworthy.net/2008/09/03/slow-income-growth-for-m...

Graph showing the middle classes loosing to the debt system http://lanekenworthy.net/2008/03/09/the-best-inequality-grap...

An Investment Manager's View on the Top 1% http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/investment_manage...

Hitting peak debt 2008 http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2014/0...

Pretty much everything here is wrong. The Fed is every bit a government agency as NASA.

Well here is the shareholder list http://oneradionetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/FrbNY_owners2....

That's a regional Federal Reserve Bank, not "the Fed". Also, you leave out that those share holders get at most 6% annual return for their investment, since it's capped by law.

> Pretty much everything here is wrong. The Fed is every bit a government agency as NASA.

Longer explanation (and citation) needed.

Actually, I'm pretty sure the Fed is a privately-owned company, with preferred shareholders and everything. That's not to say the government isn't hugely influential on what it does, but that it's a completely separate entity.

Of course, I could be completely wrong. I'd actually be interested if someone had proof for either argument.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/about_12593.htm

http://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/about_12799.htm

http://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/about_14986.htm

Seriously, if it involves the U.S. federal government, information about it will be easy to find. You don't need to guess or assume, just do a few simple searches.

edit: Well, not all of it, but the structure of the Fed isn't exactly a national secret.

No, that's incorrect. The Federal Reserve System is an unusual hybrid unlike NASA or any other government agency I can think of. NASA doesn't have Boeing or Raytheon as "member agencies" or as owners of regional space administrations that take their marching orders from a Board of Space Governors appointed by the president.

Some of the critics of the Fed like this book, but I haven't read it myself: http://www.amazon.com/The-Creature-Jekyll-Island-Federal/dp/...

Note I'm not expressing an opinion on the grandparent post's claims one way or another.

As others who have replied, that's not quite correct. However, substantially all the net income of the Federal Reserve is remitted to the Treasury Department.

Some of it is remitted to the "owning" banks, as a kind of rebate for the token capital they pay. But "ownership" here is not the same as beneficial ownership.

In other words, the Federal Reserve is designed to be not directly linked to the Executive Branch. But it is also designed not to be a profit-making private enterprise.

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