Good questions. The fed has never been audited. We don’t know who owns the shares. We do know that the motive for forming this forth central US bank was to give a few large banks a competitive edge from failing by promoting the too big to fail idea. Why else are some banks bailed out and not others? I do believe that the fed’s ownership is vastly different from the public pronouncements but the only way to tell is to open up the books, which have never been done. Past history (the first 3 US central banks, the bank of england, …) show that what I and many others suspect about the fed has been true in other central banks since the first one was formed in the 1690’s as the bank of england. Congress, which approved the formation of the fed in 1913, gets to defecit spend under the confusing fed system, which is their motive as was the english governments in the 1690’s. Sounds too wierd to be true doesn’t it?
The best way to understand the fed is to follow the money from the treasury, through the fed and onto others, as I pointed out in the first blog and as john lott does in his opinion page on fox news. Please see his article and read the creature book. The fed is simple and complex at the same time but if you want to understand why the national debt will never be paid off and why bernanke can say to the congress that it’s none of their business where the fed spends our money, read the creature book.