He then told me that the Federal Reserve owns the US debt and the FED is actually privately owned by the a few wealthy families. If you Google "who owns the FED?" some really interesting stories come up, implying that the two US presidents to challenge the constitutional existence of the Federal Reserve System were assassinated. There are references cited for most of the claims, I haven't had time to check them all out yet but I am fascinated. If true, this is really alarming, if not, it would make the best conspiracy theory of all time I cant believe no one has made a movie about it.
You friend is misinformed. The Federal Reserve is part of the federal government . It does have the power to effectively print money by creating bank reserves, and it does earn interest on its government bond holdings, but it is required by law to send that interest to the federal treasury (after deducting operating expenses). I don't agree with current Fed monetary policy, but it is more open than it has ever been. Bernanke gave a news conference yesterday, a first for a Fed chief.
