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The Federal Reserve claims that nobody owns it – that it is an “independent entity within the government.” The Federal Reserve is subject to laws such as the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act which cover Federal agencies but not private corporations; yet Congress gave the Federal Reserve the autonomy to carry out its responsibilities insulated from political pressure. Each of the Fed's three parts – the Board of Governors, the regional Reserve banks and the Federal Open Market Committee – operates independently of the federal government to carry out the Fed's core responsibilities. Once a member of the Board of Governors is appointed, he or she can be as independent as a U.S. Supreme Court judge, though the term is shorter.
As the nation's central bank, the Federal Reserve derives its authority from the U.S. Congress. It is considered an independent central bank because its decisions do not have to be ratified by the President or anyone else in the executive or legislative branch of government, it does not receive funding appropriated by the Congress, and the terms of the members of the Board of Governors span multiple presidential and congressional terms. The Fed's financial independence arises because it is hugely profitable due to its ownership of government bonds. It returns billions of dollars to the government each year. However, the Federal Reserve is subject to oversight by the Congress, which periodically reviews its activities and can alter its responsibilities by statute. Also, the Federal Reserve must work within the framework of the overall objectives of economic and financial policy established by the government.
The twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks, which were established by the Congress as the operating arms of the nation's central banking system, are organized much like private corporations—possibly leading to some confusion about “ownership.” For example, the Reserve Banks issue shares of stock to member banks. However, owning Reserve Bank stock is quite different from owning stock in a private company. The Reserve Banks are not operated for profit, and ownership of a certain amount of stock is, by law, a condition of membership in the System. The stock may not be sold or traded or pledged as security for a loan; dividends are, by law, limited to 6 percent per year.[1]
The Federal Reserve System, frequently referred to as simply the Federal Reserve Bank, was created via the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 which "established a new central bank designed to add both flexibility and strength to the nation's financial system. The legislation provided for a system that included a number of regional Reserve Banks and a seven-member governing board. All national banks were required to join the system and other banks could join. The Reserve Banks opened for business in November 1914. Congress created Federal Reserve notes to provide the nation with an elastic supply of currency. The notes were to be issued to Reserve Banks for subsequent transmittal to banking institutions in accordance with the needs of the public.
The Federal Reserve Bank is the focus of much criticism and even, at times, conspiracy theories. Some critics say that the name was intentionally chosen to deceive and fool the U.S. citizens into acceptance. Such critics claim that the Federal Reserve's real purposes are (1) to make a profit by "skimming" a small percent of the 10 trillion dollar U.S. economy; (2) to redistribute wealth through the sales and purchase of the U.S. national debt (currently about 7 trillion dollars); and (3) to fix currency exchange rates with other country central banks throughout the world to generate an additional $1 billion dollars a day in profits; (4) to cartelize the banking industry; (5) to monopolize the creation of new money; (6) to redistribute wealth through the process of inflation.
Some of these critics say that the U.S. Congress was tricked by the world elite into creating the Federal Reserve System in 1913 for the purpose of money control through inflation (invisible taxation of the masses), extremely high and profitable interest rates, and outright taxation through the creation of liens and bonds paid for by U.S. citizens. These critics argue that, through unconstitutional changes in law, the words income (corporations) and wage (people's paychecks) were redefined. Taxation enforcement ( Internal Revenue Service) could now force U.S. citizens to pay taxes, and fees and fines under penalty of law, possible arrest and imprisonment.
According to critics, " fractional reserve banking" amounts to fraud and theft, and central banking is the method by which this fraud and theft are cartel-ized and institutionalized.
Originally, a bank was a warehouse, a safe place to store valuables, especially gold and silver money. A fee was charged for the service, and warehouse receipts were issued as a claim ticket on the valuables stored. Because everyone knew that these receipts were "as good as gold", the receipts themselves began to be traded as money.
Bankers noticed that on any given day, only a small fraction of the warehouse receipts were redeemed for money, so the unscrupulous among them began printing counterfeit receipts, i.e. receipts that were not matched by an actual deposit of gold or silver. The bankers were then able to either spend the counterfeit receipts themselves, or loan them out and charge interest. Thus the total supply of money could be enlarged very easily, and was an obvious method to enrich the unscrupulous bankers, say critics. The cost of this enrichment was saddled on everyone else, who now found their existing money to be worth less and less as the overall supply of money grew greater and greater.
The more counterfeit receipts that were printed and circulated, the more people would show up to redeem them in gold or silver, the more the actual bank reserves would be depleted until, at some point, the bank would be bankrupt and legitimate depositors would be left holding receipts that were irredeemable. A situation where depositors showed up to the bank in large groups to demand their money became known as a “ bank run” or a “run on the bank”. Clearly, the legitimate depositors were victims of fraud and theft, while whomever printed conterfeit reciepts was guilty, assuming the story to be true.
Critics of central banking, sometimes dismissed as "conspiracy theorists", enlarge the story to include several competing banks. Each bank begins issuing its own warehouse receipts, now known as “paper money”. Paper money is called "fractional money" when only a fraction of the total supply of money is backed by a precious commodity. Bank owners have a strong incentive to create as much fractional paper money as possible, because it is an effective method of self-enrichment. However, if bank #1 creates significantly more paper money than bank #2, then bank #2 will end up holding a large amount of bank #1’s paper money. Eventually it will wish to redeem this for real gold or silver, thus bankrupting bank #1.
The problem then, as bankers saw it, was to design a system where all competing banks could expand their money supplies in unison. As long as bank #1 has claims against bank #2 that are equal to the claims that bank #2 has against bank #1, then the claims simply cancel each other out. That way, with equal amounts of outstanding debt, in principle all the bankers could enjoy spending an endless source of new and additional paper money, without having to redeem much of anything.
As critics and conspiracy theorists tell it, many attempts at banking cartels were implemented, where supposedly competing bankers conspired with one another to print equal amounts of paper money. These cartels were ultimately in vain, because of the ever-present counter-incentive to break the cartel, print less paper money than the competing bank, and end up with the ability to withdraw real gold or silver from the competitors vault, possibly bankrupting them in the process.
The only way to orchestrate the expansion and contraction of credit and money on a large scale is to make it a matter of law. Private citizens must be forced to accept a single type of paper money in payment of debt or contract, and paper money must be irredeemable for anything of real value. When paper money has been completely separated from any commodity, it is known as " fiat money" (money by decree). Central governments in all industrialized nations have now achieved just such a situation, in partnership with the large commercial banks. Skeptics point out that government leaders would also have a strong incentive to bring about pure fiat money, because it would enable those leaders to spend additional revenue without having to raise taxes directly.
Proponents of the Austrian school of economics conclude that manipulation of the money and credit supply is the cause of the boom-bust business cycle. Some even go so far as to claim that major wars would be impossible without central banking, because citizens are unlikely to support such costly endeavors when they are made to pay for them up front.
New money is created by the issuance of new debt, and injected into the banking system from a single central location, thus ensuring precisely the symmetrical, uniform expansion of the money supply long desired by the bankers. Critics, skeptics and conspiracy theorists argue that the monopolistic power to create new money costlessly, “out of thin air”, is in fact the power to transfer real wealth away from consumers, and place it squarely in the hands of those with the money monopoly, i.e. the central government itself, the large commercial banks, and government contractors.
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