To my knowledge the Federal Reserve System is neither a private bank nor a government entity. It can be better described as a cartel. Just like OPEC is an oil cartel. The Federal Reserve is fundamentally and very basically just a private bank in a very simplistic way, with only a few key customers; Fanni Mae, Freddie Mac, and the U.S Government. The members appointed by the president are appointed under some federal control in that sense, unfortunately the positions are monopolized by the special interest groups and pre-existing members of the Federal Reserve to maintain their monopoly. Furthermore unfortunate is they have no legal obligation to answer to congress or anyone else in the federal government when making decisions for their own purposes. Such as printing billions of dollars without notice to anyone other than media statements “hey we printed $500B” when they give money to the World Bank who then distributes it as they see fit without any oversight from congress.
It’s worth noting that the Secretary of Treasury is also not a government employee, the Secretary of Treasury is basically a middle man between the president, Fed chairman, and the world bank committee and is paid by the world bank as a representative of the U.S.
While the Federal Reserve has board members, regional members, and member banks on the administrative board of the Federal Reserve, I don’t think they hold any physical ownership.
The rumor is (which has no proof and cannot be proven easily) is that the founders of the Federal Reserve and some key players who aren’t directly responsible own the federal reserve through marriage and birth passed through the generations. Many of them probably don’t even know they are an owner of the Fed. The key people who would most likely have some of the ownership would likely be the Warburgs, Rothschilds, and the Schiff families who were founders and key players in the creation and operation of countless banks all over the world including some central banks.
So while board members might run the show, there is little doubt a lot more goes on behind the scenes in all the private meetings not seen in public media nor addressed to the president or congress. Most of our national debt is owed to the Federal reserve system, and as per the the last audit many decades ago of the Fort Knox that was ordered, at that time and probably still true today, the U.S owns no gold at all, and the only gold we do own is held as collateral for our debt to the federal reserve.
There are huge gray areas all around the Federal Reserve that make it impossible to describe it in absolutes other than “totally corrupt, unethical, and damaging to all mankind”.
There are several books on Mises that look good, I haven’t read them.
The Creature from Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin I personally haven’t read but will be soon. It’ll likely be the next book I read.
check out “The Money Masters” there is a 3.5 hour long video on Google Videos on that linked below here. And also check out anything on the Federal Reserve in Google Videos as well. G. Edward Griffin has several lengthy in depth interviews on Google Videos. The information from the books and videos all coincide nicely with all the speakers from the Mises Institute talk about and write about.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-515319560256183936#