[quote=davelj][quote=investor]The federal reserve is a private company, whose ownership is mostly unknown but I suspect are the wealthiest 2 people on earth[/quote]

Really? I direct you to the the question titled: “Who Owns the Federal Reserve?” in the link below. It’s not that mysterious. The 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks that comprise the Federal Reserve System are “owned” by their respective member banks – that is, a bank has to own stock in its regional Federal Reserve Bank to be a “member bank.” And the System is an independent, non-profit entity operating within the government.
So you want to quote the federal reserve as your unbiased source? Hmmmm. The question is, who owns the bulk of the stock? The fed has never been audited so we don’t know, do we? Ownership, by itself does not necessarily mean corruption. Influencing world affairs with your power and making bilions off of managing our money is corruption. By the way, the failure of the continental is why the founding fathers put into the constitution that only congress could produce money and that it had to be made of precious metals, not paper. (reference, the creature book)

I’m not saying this is the best system. I’m also not saying that shenanigans don’t go on. But… it’s not like some tiny group of ultra-wealthy folks OWN the System and manipulate it for their benefit. Although you could argue that a small group of folks (the wealthy, politicians, etc.) have undue INFLUENCE over the Federal Reserve’s policies – that’s true almost by definition. But your suspicions regarding actual “ownership” are incorrect.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/generalinfo/faq/faqfrs.htm%5B/quote%5D
The fed is not working within the US government and never has. For proof, read the creature book which documents it well for 800 pages.These beliefs are very common amoungst the population and are horribly untrue. When the dollar bubble and the US debt bubble pops, maybe then the fed will be audited, but I doubt it. By audit, I mean all of its owners and cash flow exposed to the public.