[icu]

Re: The Fed

The Fed is a privately owned bank that is given the monopoly to issue debt backed by the taxation of the State.

The U.S. could simply issue debt itself. Even though the President appoints the Fed Chairman and it has the word "Federal" in its name it is not a Government organization. If you don't believe me, try getting ownership information from the Fed via the Freedom of Information Act.

For further information see what happened when President Andrew Jackson abolished the precursor to the current Fed. America didn't implode it actually thrived. Also worth looking into is how the current Fed came about. President Woodrow Wilson lived long enough to regret bringing the Fed back.

Fun fact, the Bank of England started off as a private bank before it became nationalized. Nothing is stopping the U.S. from doing the same.

Re: Economics is modelling

If that were the case what is Communism? Is that a model or a political system? What is Capitalism? Is that a model too? No... they are 'societal beliefs in action' which is what politics is.

As for your assertions on philosophy... I would say philosophy is more than finding inconsistencies, it's a framework for thought itself that allows for reasoning.

What is a model anyway? At its essence it's an idea (or set of ideas) that may or may not be true. I think a big part of the problem with Economics today is the hubris modelling can confer by giving the illusion of accuracy.

It's worth looking into the works of Nobel Prize winner in Economics and the Turing Award winner Herbert A. Simon or more recently Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

Simon's Nobel acceptance speech suns things up better than I can.

[dragonwriter]

> Even though the President appoints the Fed Chairman and it has the word "Federal" in its name it is not a Government organization. If you don't believe me, try getting information from the Fed via the Freedom of Information Act.

The Fed's own page on the FOIA indicates that the Fed thinks it's a federal agency covered by FOIA.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/foia/about_foia.htm

[icu]

Okay... request information on the ownership structure of each of the Fed banks (i.e. share register) and see how far you get.

I know it sounds crazy but the Fed is simply not a Government organization if it is privately owned.

[pas]

It's not privately owned.

It has mandatory non-voting non-transferable shares. That is, when you fund a bank, you have to buy in at the regional Fed. Why? Who knows, it's a law on the books, and it's basically mindless administration. It does not make it "owned" in any sense.

The Fed is established by an Act of Congress, directly reports to Congress, and every aspect of the Fed's rights and duties is directly spelled out in laws.

If you do a FOIA request for ownership structure, you'll get nothing, because there's no such thing. The Fed is not owned by anyone, it's an independent-from-the-WhiteHouse US agency. It has a budget (and is self funded, from the interests of the securities/assets it holds), it has expenses for staff and for the cost of providing services, it then gets reimbursed from the Treasury for certain services, etc. ( https://www.federalreserve.gov/foia/files/2018ReserveBankBud... ) And it pays out 6% to the member banks, who are mandated by law to have equal to 3% of their capital in Fed Regional Bank "shares".

There's one instance where the regional fed banks can be thought of as "private": from the perspective of the FTCA [the Federal Tort Claims Act].

See also Scott v. Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, in which the distinction is made between Federal Reserve Banks, which are federally created instrumentalities, and the Fed Board of Governors, which is a federal agency.