[cynicalkane]

American debt is issued entirely by Congress and the Treasury, and its monetization controlled by the Fed's Board of Governors, which is appointed by the government and independently operated. There's no means of control over these two things outside the U.S. government. There's also the FOMC, but this is relatively unessential such that it's unlikely to be related to whatever "essential truth" Graeber has in mind. In particular, they don't set monetary policy but do whatever the Board of Governors orders in that regard.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

I wasn't making an argument about the behavior of the Fed.

You stated that Graeber had told "an essential lie" in claiming that the Fed was privately controlled. I quoted from the St. Louis Fed. their own text which (a) confirms that it is not part of the government (b) it's complicated.

I don't really give a damn about the argument on whether the Fed is or is not part of the government; what I care about is people claiming that someone is lying when they are not.

[cynicalkane]

The point is issuance of American debt, and the Fed's role in it, is not privately controlled, neither in fact or in essence. Saying otherwise is an obvious lie in both senses.

[thoughtstheseus]

Just a financial plumbing nitpick. The TREASURY issues debt, not the Federal Reserve. Everyone agrees the Treasury is part of the federal government.

[zzbzq]

This dispute might originate deeper into Graeber's other work on debt in "Debt: The first 5000 years." In common parlance, Treasury Bonds are the debt. But, in Graeber's theory of debt, the currency itself is also debt.