The Federal Reserve and Federal Express

Dollar bills. The Fed. Federal Reserve Notes. These are all words and terms that we have heard of or seen. But what exactly is the Federal Reserve? Is it our nation's bank? Who runs this bank? All of these answers may surprise you and will also probably disappoint you. It is a privately owned bank that lends money to our United States government at interest. The clever title has fooled many Americans. The Federal is privately owned, but has many ties to our government. The Board of Governors is chosen by our own President and Senate (Johnson, 1999). No president has ever had to appoint the board of say, Wells Fargo. What makes this bank so special? Well, first of all, The Federal Reserve Bank works very closely with our government. It is the bank that lends us the dollar bills that are in our very wallets, it sets the interest rates, and it controls our money supply. The Fed can encourage or discourage spending by setting what is called the reserve requirement. The reserve requirement is the amount of cash that a bank must have on hand or claim at the Federal Reserve at any given time. Open market operations controls the amount of money the Fed holds. The Fed controls this by buying and selling U.S. government treasury securities. The most infrequently used mechanism that the Fed can call upon is called the discount rate. The discount rate is a fluctuating rate that is attached to short-term loans that smaller banks get from the Fed.  An increase in this rate discourages institution's borrowing and a decrease would promote borrowing and encourage the institutions lending initiative (Gill, 2008).

There are 12 Federal Reserve Banks located across the country. The current head of the bank is Mr. Benjamin Bernanke. He never appeared on any ballots, he was not elected by citizens and yet he is almost in total control of our nation's finances. Mr. Bernanke is quoted to have said, "Like gold, U.S. dollars have value only to the extent that they are strictly limited in supply. But the U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost." (Maier, 2008). Many of our founding fathers including Thomas Jefferson were terrified of the Federal Reserve's concept. They believed that it was the end of America and that only bad things would come from the Fed. Today, many seem to have overlooked this wisdom. Can we blame the Fed for today's economic shortcomings? After all, the Federal Reserve is only as Federal as Federal Express.

http://www.investopedia.com/university/thefed/fed1.asp

http://host.madison.com/news/opinion/unmasking-the-mysterious-federal-reserve/article_5fb65783-dff4-5799-bc2a-88a0581a6902.html

http://www.higherintellect.info/texts/religion.occult.new_age/occult.conspiracy.and.related/Johnson,%20Roger%20J%20-%20Historical%20Beginnings-The%20Federal%20Reserve.pdf