[quote=investor]Good questions. The fed has never been audited. We don’t know who owns the shares. [/quote]

I’m not sure why you think an audit would necessarily reveal ownership. For publicly traded companies, the only required disclosure is for 5% or more ownership. From my previous life as a CPA, my recollection is that disclosure of ownership is not necessarily required unless it is material to the ongoing business of the entity.

What we do know from other disclosures, is that all federally chartered banks have investments in the fed, and through the fed’s website (and in some cases from individual stockholder banks financial disclosures) that ownership (and investment) is based on the capital of those individual banks and pays a fixed rate of return.