Who Owns the Fed?

As my first attempt to get a list of current shareholders of the semi-private Federal Reserve in late 2008 did never yield an answer I sent an inquiry to the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) Wednesday.

As this is still the most important institution in terms of influencing markets I wonder why the Fed does not publish this extremely important piece of information that could provide valuable information about who really pulls the strings in an organisation which uses two different suffix on the web. The server of the Federal Reserve is named "federalreserve.gov" whereas the FRB's server is registered as "frb.gov".

The only lists of shareholders of the Fed found on the web through a Go-ogle search are hopelessly outdated and appear to stem from the first half of the 20th century. Or is anyone still doing business with Chase National?

As a non-American I cannot file a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request as this institution was defined as a semi-private organization. According to this wikipedia entry:

"The plan adopted in the original Federal Reserve Act called for the creation of a System that contained both private and public entities."

The Federal Reserve Act was pushed through on Capitol Hill on December 23, 1913 after a secretive meeting of the USA's bankers elite on Jekyll Island.
Today I used the inquiry form on the Fed's website and asked the following questions directly to the FRB:

Dear FRB members,

I have a very simple question: Where can I find a list of current shareholders of the Federal Reserve? On the web I only find hopelessly outdated lists that seem to stem from the first half of the 20th century as most of these institutions are not in business anymore. Can you please provide me with a current list of shareholders and the number of shares they are holding?

I have filed this question in autumn 2008 as a general inquiry but never received any answer so far.

My second question concerns the status of the Federal Reserve as there is a server name "federalreserve.gov" but also a server name "FRB.org." Is it a private or a public institution?

My third question is why the shareholders of the Federal Reserve receive a guaranteed 6% dividend that is not taxable?

I am most grateful for an answer.

Yours sincerely,
Toni Straka, CEFA

I am curious as to whether I will get an answer to one of the most important questions regarding capital markets.

In order to find truth one usually has to follow the money trail.

Follow the Money - Find the Truth

Let's see where I get. In case I am not getting an answer I am calling all bloggers and everybody else to use the said form so that the Fed recognizes that transparent markets need to be transparent in terms of ownership in the first place and the broad public has a vital interest whether it was private or a public organization whose loose monetary policy and the rejection to regulate markets effectively have led to the biggest economic and financial crisis in mankind's history.

The Fed is certainly the most privileged institution in the world, only having to give testimony on Capitol Hill twice a year and getting away with "missing" $9 TRILLION.

Isn't all this a conundrum? It is!

Comments

[herbert hoover]

Who owns the Fed? Goldman Sachs

2009 May 21 12:00 PM

[Gtarras]

Russians believe Rothschild family, other American old money and European royalty are among the major owners of the Fed. Just another conspiracy theory?

2009 May 21 01:04 PM

[john s. gordon]

yes clearly goldman sachs owns the federal reserve.
> jack

2009 May 22 08:55 AM

[fireball]

i started trying to track it down in the early 90s. no results. this prompted me to take a strong position in precious metals as insurance against my suspicions.
was it rothschild? " i care not who makes the laws if i control the issuance of currency."
john s. gordon probably knows the accurate quote.

devvy kidd has an interesting booklet called "why a bankrupt america" on the fed.
sometimes there are conspiracies. politics is loaded with them. business is loaded with them.

2009 May 22 09:24 AM

[Big DD]

I own the Fed, but I won't tell you my name. If you can beat me in Tennis I might think about it.

2009 May 22 12:16 PM

[Westcoaster]

Money centered banks in NY district. They have control through voting. The profits though as I understand it are returned to the Treasury. Many of these NY banks have changed hands many times in the last 20 years. I don't think the Rothschild's own any of them. Didn't all of their banks get taken from them following WWII. The Brits and the French just taxed the shit out of any one in their countries with money. The Fed and banking is not an evil conspiracy. It is an amazing system whereby no one, Marx, hippies, utopians have figured out a better system yet. There is not one man behind the curtain. Member banks own co-op bankers banks all around the country. It is based on credit and trust, not evilness.

2009 May 22 12:52 PM

[OldNavySailor]

Write your congressman asking him/her to support Congressman Ron Paul's bill HR-1207 "Federal Reserve Transparency Act" (currently 179 co-sponsors). America needs the Federal Reserve to be held accountable to the people!

2009 May 22 01:37 PM

[swaps]

The Fed is an "amazing system" which has driven the value of the 1913 dollar down to a nickle. Just sto the banking system can continue to operate.

If the Fed did not continually inflate money supply then wages could not be inflated so there would be extra dollars to give to lenders for the interest charges.

Buy a house for $200,000 and the bank can create $200,000 out of thin air for the seller. But the borrower will have to pay back the $200,000 plus another, say $400,000, over the life of the loan if they have a subprime loan that kicks the floating interest rate up to higher interest rates. If the Fed does not put more money into circulation the lender would soon gather in a huge percentage of outstanding money and the borrowers would have no money to pay on the loan.

Of course, that is what happened when globalism accompanied by exported jobs and imported cheap labor broke the wage inflation that was needed to make the amazing Fed system work.

It is increasingly apparent that in a complex, interactive world the amazing Fed does not work anymore, no matter whom owns it.

The two trillion dollars the amazing Fed and intellectually challenged Treasury and Congress have created out of thin air will cost six million dollars to pay back, including interest.

But wage deflation makes it more unlikely that the interest payments, much less the principal, will be easily come up with.

2009 May 22 03:20 PM

[patrick flanagan]

I have connected and research the "dots" for the last 6 months based on what I see on Seeking Alpha.........and where the links lead via the internet. Many hunderds of hours..........many pages. How do you get anyone's attention to start viewing this Fed out in the open ?
I have a pretty good 5 page review put together that sheds a lot of lite of this Fed......the various insider bank connections.............. how they use now AIG to cleanse balance sheets via the back door with freshly printed FED $. Who wants my data ?

2009 May 22 05:00 PM

[henarl]

Goldman Sachs probably does not completely "own" the Fed but their past and present board members and executives damn sure run it. They will be unlikely to answer any questions about their ownership or operations as they work most effectively for their own account in secrecy and stealth.

2009 May 22 05:32 PM

[Westcoaster]

Swaps were you alive pre 1913. Do you think your grandparents had it better? Ask them? From what I know bank failures and lack of credit and cash was a horrible system constrained by how quickly the earth could dig up gold. Not a good way to live pre 1913. Please come up with something better? Remember dissent is patriotic not criticism, ie you have to offer something else at some point not just bitch.

And yes central banks do try to control and manipulate inflation, that and price stability and lender of last resort is their job.

2009 May 22 05:36 PM

[Lynne]

I'll do that immediately. Thank you for putting up an actionable fact.

On May 22 01:37 PM OldNavySailor wrote:

> Write your congressman asking him/her to support Congressman Ron
> Paul's bill HR-1207 "Federal Reserve Transparency Act" (currently
> 179 co-sponsors). America needs the Federal Reserve to be held accountable
> to the people!

2009 May 22 06:40 PM

[skee]

1. The Rothschilds of London and Berlin;
2. Lazard Brothers of Paris;
3. Israel Moses Seif of Italy;
4. Kuhn Loeb and Warburg of Germany;
5. Lehman Brothers, Goldman, Sachs; 6. The Rothschild-controlled Rockefeller interests of New York.

2009 May 23 01:02 AM