Round 25 Results

[Gen. Volkov]

They report to the Senate do they not? The Fed board is appointed by the President. That sounds like government employees to me. Or at least something very close to it. They are an independent government agency.

The money is held by various banks around the country yes, but it it released according to the Fed board. The Federal reserve banks themselves are not actually privately traded at all, I was mistaken. Some of the member banks are, but when a member bank joins the Federal Reserve system, it is required to buy a certain amount of nonegotiable shares of stock in that federal reserve bank. The outstanding shares of stock are held by the US government. So the federal reserve banks, but not the board, are technically "owned" by the member banks. They are both federal and non-federal, depending on the situation, legally speaking. But the Federal reserve does not actually print the currency, it just receives and releases it from the US Mint. The US Mint is the richest organization in the country, and it in fact IS state owned.