Image 1	US-FederalReserveSystem-Seal.svg
Image title 1	Seal
Image 2	Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve Board Building.jpg
Image title 2	Federal Reserve System headquarters (Eccles Building)
Headquarters	Washington, D.C.
President	Ben Bernanke
Leader title	Chairman
President2	Donald Kohn
Leader title2	Vice Chairman
Bank of	United States
Currency	United States dollar
Currency iso	USD
Borrowing rate	0%–0.25%
Website	federalreserve.gov
Footnotes	}}

The Federal Reserve System (also known as the Federal Reserve, and informally as the Fed) is the central banking system of the United States. It was created in 1913 with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, largely in response to a series of financial panics, particularly a severe panic in 1907. Over time, the roles and responsibilities of the Federal Reserve System have expanded and its structure has evolved. Events such as the Great Depression were major factors leading to changes in the system. Its duties today, according to official Federal Reserve documentation, are to conduct the nation's monetary policy, supervise and regulate banking institutions, maintain the stability of the financial system and provide financial services to depository institutions, the U.S. government, and foreign official institutions.

The Federal Reserve System's structure is composed of the presidentially appointed Board of Governors (or Federal Reserve Board), the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks located in major cities throughout the nation, numerous privately owned U.S. member banks and various advisory councils. The FOMC is the committee responsible for setting monetary policy and consists of all seven members of the Board of Governors and the twelve regional bank presidents, though only five bank presidents vote at any given time. The Federal Reserve System has both private and public components, and was designed to serve the interests of both the general public and private bankers. The result is a structure that is considered unique among central banks. It is also unusual in that an entity outside of the central bank, namely the United States Department of the Treasury, creates the currency used.

According to the Board of Governors, the Federal Reserve is independent within government in that "its decisions do not have to be ratified by the President or anyone else in the executive or legislative branch of government." However, its authority is derived from the U.S. Congress and is subject to congressional oversight. Additionally, the members of the Board of Governors, including its chairman and vice-chairman, are chosen by the President and confirmed by Congress. The government also exercises some control over the Federal Reserve by appointing and setting the salaries of the system's highest-level employees. Thus the Federal Reserve has both private and public aspects. The U.S. Government receives all of the system's annual profits, after a statutory dividend of 6% on member banks' capital investment is paid, and an account surplus is maintained. In 2010, the Federal Reserve made a profit of $82 billion and transferred $79 billion to the U.S. Treasury.

History

Central banking in the United States

In 1690, the Massachusetts Bay Colony became the first in the United States to issue paper money, but soon others began printing their own money as well. The demand for currency in the colonies was due to the scarcity of coins, which had been the primary means of trade. However, some of the currencies were not redeemable in gold or silver, which caused them to depreciate.

The first attempt at a national currency was during the American Revolutionary War. In 1775 the Continental Congress began issuing its own paper currency, calling their bills "Continentals". The Continentals were backed only by future tax revenue, and were used to help finance the Revolutionary War. As a result, the value of a Continental diminished quickly. The experience led the United States to be skeptical of unbacked currencies, which were not issued again until the Civil War. Nonetheless, the First Bank of the United States came to an end under President Madison because Congress refused to renew its charter. The Second Bank of the United States was established in 1816, and lost its authority to be the central bank of the U.S. twenty years later under President Jackson when its charter expired. Both banks were based upon the Bank of England. Ultimately, a third national bank, known as the Federal Reserve, was established in 1913 and still exists to this day.

Timeline of central banking in the United States

1791–1811: First Bank of the United States

1811–1816: No central bank

1816–1836: Second Bank of the United States

1837–1862: Free Bank Era

1846–1921: Independent Treasury System

1863–1913: National Banks

1913–Present: Federal Reserve System

:''Sources: , , , Chapter 1''

Creation of First and Second Central Bank

The first U.S. institution with central banking responsibilities was the First Bank of the United States, chartered by Congress and signed into law by President George Washington on February 25, 1791 at the urging of Alexander Hamilton. This was done despite strong opposition from Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, among numerous others. The charter was for twenty years and expired in 1811 under President Madison, because Congress refused to renew it.

In 1816, however, Madison revived it in the form of the Second Bank of the United States. Years later, early renewal of the bank's charter became the primary issue in the reelection of President Andrew Jackson. After Jackson, who was opposed to the central bank, was reelected, he pulled the government's funds out of the bank. Nicholas Biddle, President of the Second Bank of the United States, responded by contracting the money supply to pressure Jackson to renew the bank's charter forcing the country into a recession, which the bank blamed on Jackson's policies. Interestingly, Jackson is the only President to completely pay off the national debt. The bank's charter was not renewed in 1836. From 1837 to 1862, in the Free Banking Era there was no formal central bank. From 1862 to 1913, a system of national banks was instituted by the 1863 National Banking Act. A series of bank panics, in 1873, 1893, and 1907, provided strong demand for the creation of a centralized banking system.

Creation of Third Central Bank

The main motivation for the third central banking system came from the Panic of 1907, which caused renewed demands for banking and currency reform. During the last quarter of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century the United States economy went through a series of financial panics. According to many economists, the previous national banking system had two main weaknesses: an inelastic currency and a lack of liquidity. In 1908, Congress enacted the Aldrich-Vreeland Act, which provided for an emergency currency and established the National Monetary Commission to study banking and currency reform. The National Monetary Commission returned with recommendations which later became the basis of the Federal Reserve Act, passed in 1913.

Federal Reserve Act

The head of the bipartisan National Monetary Commission was financial expert and Senate Republican leader Nelson Aldrich. Aldrich set up two commissions—one to study the American monetary system in depth and the other, headed by Aldrich himself, to study the European central banking systems and report on them. Aldrich went to Europe opposed to centralized banking, but after viewing Germany's monetary system he came away believing that a centralized bank was better than the government-issued bond system that he had previously supported.

In early November 1910, Aldrich met with five well known members of the New York banking community to devise a central banking bill. Paul Warburg, an attendee of the meeting and long time advocate of central banking in the U.S., later wrote that Aldrich was "bewildered at all that he had absorbed abroad and he was faced with the difficult task of writing a highly technical bill while being harassed by the daily grind of his parliamentary duties". After ten days of deliberation, the bill, which would later be referred to as the "Aldrich Plan", was agreed upon. It had several key components, including a central bank with a Washington-based headquarters and fifteen branches located throughout the U.S. in geographically strategic locations, and a uniform elastic currency based on gold and commercial paper. Aldrich believed a central banking system with no political involvement was best, but was convinced by Warburg that a plan with no public control was not politically feasible. The compromise involved representation of the public sector on the Board of Directors.

Aldrich's bill met much opposition from politicians. Critics were suspicious of a central bank, and charged Aldrich of being biased due to his close ties to wealthy bankers such as J. P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Aldrich's son-in-law. Most Republicans favored the Aldrich Plan, but it lacked enough support in Congress to pass because rural and western states viewed it as favoring the "eastern establishment". In contrast, progressive Democrats favored a reserve system owned and operated by the government; they believed that public ownership of the central bank would end Wall Street's control of the American currency supply. Conservative Democrats fought for a privately owned, yet decentralized, reserve system, which would still be free of Wall Street's control.

The original Aldrich Plan was dealt a fatal blow in 1912, when Democrats won the White House and Congress. Nonetheless, President Woodrow Wilson believed that the Aldrich plan would suffice with a few modifications. The plan became the basis for the Federal Reserve Act, which was proposed by Senator Robert Owen in May 1913. The primary difference between the two bills was the transfer of control of the Board of Directors (called the Federal Open Market Committee in the Federal Reserve Act) to the government. The bill passed Congress on December 23, 1913, on a mostly partisan basis, with most Democrats voting "yea" and most Republicans voting "nay".

Key laws

Key laws affecting the Federal Reserve have been:

Federal Reserve Act

Glass–Steagall Act

Banking Act of 1935

Employment Act of 1946

Federal Reserve-Treasury Department Accord of 1951

Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 and the amendments of 1970

Federal Reserve Reform Act of 1977

International Banking Act of 1978

Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act (1978)

Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act (1980)

Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act of 1991

Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (1999)

Financial Services Regulatory Relief Act (2006)

Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (2008)

Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (2010)

Purpose

The primary motivation for creating the Federal Reserve System was to address banking panics. Other purposes are stated in the Federal Reserve Act, such as "to furnish an elastic currency, to afford means of rediscounting commercial paper, to establish a more effective supervision of banking in the United States, and for other purposes". Before the founding of the Federal Reserve, the United States underwent several financial crises. A particularly severe crisis in 1907 led Congress to enact the Federal Reserve Act in 1913. Today the Federal Reserve System has broader responsibilities than only ensuring the stability of the financial system.

Current functions of the Federal Reserve System include:

To address the problem of banking panics

To serve as the central bank for the United States

To strike a balance between private interests of banks and the centralized responsibility of government

*To supervise and regulate banking institutions

*To protect the credit rights of consumers

To manage the nation's money supply through monetary policy to achieve the sometimes-conflicting goals of

*maximum employment

stable prices, including prevention of either inflation or deflation

*moderate long-term interest rates

To maintain the stability of the financial system and contain systemic risk in financial markets

To provide financial services to depository institutions, the U.S. government, and foreign official institutions, including playing a major role in operating the nation's payments system

*To facilitate the exchange of payments among regions

*To respond to local liquidity needs

To strengthen U.S. standing in the world economy

Addressing the problem of bank panics

Bank runs occur because banking institutions in the United States are only required to hold a fraction of their depositors' money in reserve. This practice is called fractional-reserve banking. As a result, most banks invest the majority of their depositors' money. On rare occasion, too many of the bank's customers will withdraw their savings and the bank will need help from another institution to continue operating. Bank runs can lead to a multitude of social and economic problems. The Federal Reserve was designed as an attempt to prevent or minimize the occurrence of bank runs, and possibly act as a lender of last resort if a bank run does occur. Many economists, following Milton Friedman, believe that the Federal Reserve inappropriately refused to lend money to small banks during the bank runs of 1929.

Elastic currency

One way to prevent bank runs is to have a money supply that can expand when money is needed. The term "elastic currency" in the Federal Reserve Act does not just mean the ability to expand the money supply, but also to contract it. Some economic theories have been developed that support the idea of expanding or shrinking a money supply as economic conditions warrant. Elastic currency is defined by the Federal Reserve as:

Monetary policy of the Federal Reserve System is based partially on the theory that it is best overall to expand or contract the money supply as economic conditions change.

Check Clearing System

Because some banks refused to clear checks from certain others during times of economic uncertainty, a check-clearing system was created in the Federal Reserve system. It is briefly described in ''The Federal Reserve System—Purposes and Functions'' as follows:

Lender of last resort

Emergencies

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, "the Federal Reserve has the authority and financial resources to act as 'lender of last resort' by extending credit to depository institutions or to other entities in unusual circumstances involving a national or regional emergency, where failure to obtain credit would have a severe adverse impact on the economy." The Federal Reserve System's role as lender of last resort has been criticized because it shifts the risk and responsibility away from lenders and borrowers and places it on others in the form of inflation.

Fluctuations

Through its discount and credit operations, Reserve Banks provide liquidity to banks to meet short-term needs stemming from seasonal fluctuations in deposits or unexpected withdrawals. Longer term liquidity may also be provided in exceptional circumstances. The rate the Fed charges banks for these loans is the discount rate (officially the primary credit rate).

By making these loans, the Fed serves as a buffer against unexpected day-to-day fluctuations in reserve demand and supply. This contributes to the effective functioning of the banking system, alleviates pressure in the reserves market and reduces the extent of unexpected movements in the interest rates. For example, on September 16, 2008, the Federal Reserve Board authorized an $85 billion loan to stave off the bankruptcy of international insurance giant American International Group (AIG).

Central bank

In its role as the central bank of the United States, the Fed serves as a banker's bank and as the government's bank. As the banker's bank, it helps to assure the safety and efficiency of the payments system. As the government's bank, or fiscal agent, the Fed processes a variety of financial transactions involving trillions of dollars. Just as an individual might keep an account at a bank, the U.S. Treasury keeps a checking account with the Federal Reserve, through which incoming federal tax deposits and outgoing government payments are handled. As part of this service relationship, the Fed sells and redeems U.S. government securities such as savings bonds and Treasury bills, notes and bonds. It also issues the nation's coin and paper currency. The U.S. Treasury, through its Bureau of the Mint and Bureau of Engraving and Printing, actually produces the nation's cash supply and, in effect, sells the paper currency to the Federal Reserve Banks at manufacturing cost, and the coins at face value. The Federal Reserve Banks then distribute it to other financial institutions in various ways. During the Fiscal Year 2008, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing delivered 7.7 billion notes at an average cost of 6.4 cents per note.

Balance between private banks and responsibility of governments

The system was designed out of a compromise between the competing philosophies of privatization and government regulation. In 2006 Donald L. Kohn, vice chairman of the Board of Governors, summarized the history of this compromise:

In the current system, private banks are for-profit businesses but government regulation places restrictions on what they can do. The Federal Reserve System is a part of government that regulates the private banks. The balance between privatization and government involvement is also seen in the structure of the system. Private banks elect members of the board of directors at their regional Federal Reserve Bank while the members of the Board of Governors are selected by the President of the United States and confirmed by the Senate. The private banks give input to the government officials about their economic situation and these government officials use this input in Federal Reserve policy decisions. In the end, private banking businesses are able to run a profitable business while the U.S. government, through the Federal Reserve System, oversees and regulates the activities of the private banks.

Government regulation and supervision

Federal Banking Agency Audit Act enacted in 1978 as Public Law 95-320 and Section 31 USC 714 of U.S. Code establish that the Federal Reserve may be audited by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The GAO has authority to audit check-processing, currency storage and shipments, and some regulatory and bank examination functions, however there are restrictions to what the GAO may in fact audit. Audits of the Reserve Board and Federal Reserve banks may not include: #transactions for or with a foreign central bank or government, or nonprivate international financing organization; #deliberations, decisions, or actions on monetary policy matters; #transactions made under the direction of the Federal Open Market Committee; or #a part of a discussion or communication among or between members of the Board of Governors and officers and employees of the Federal Reserve System related to items (1), (2), or (3).

The financial crisis which began in 2007, corporate bailouts, and concerns over the Fed's secrecy have brought renewed concern regarding ability of the Fed to effectively manage the national monetary system. A July 2009 Gallup Poll found only 30% Americans thought the Fed was doing a good or excellent job, a rating even lower than that for the Internal Revenue Service, which drew praise from 40%. The Federal Reserve Transparency Act was introduced by congressman Ron Paul in order to obtain a more detailed audit of the Fed. The Fed has since hired Linda Robertson who headed the Washington lobbying office of Enron Corp. and was adviser to all three of the Clinton administration's Treasury secretaries.

The Board of Governors in the Federal Reserve System has a number of supervisory and regulatory responsibilities in the U.S. banking system, but not complete responsibility. A general description of the types of regulation and supervision involved in the U.S. banking system is given by the Federal Reserve:

that are members of the Federal Reserve System, bank holding companies (companies that control banks), the foreign activities of member banks, the U.S. activities of foreign banks, and Edge Act and "agreement corporations" (limited-purpose institutions that engage in a foreign banking business). The Board and, under delegated authority, the Federal Reserve Banks, supervise approximately 900 state member banks and 5,000 bank holding companies. Other federal agencies also serve as the primary federal supervisors of commercial banks; the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency supervises national banks, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation supervises state banks that are not members of the Federal Reserve System.

Some regulations issued by the Board apply to the entire banking industry, whereas others apply only to member banks, that is, state banks that have chosen to join the Federal Reserve System and national banks, which by law must be members of the System. The Board also issues regulations to carry out major federal laws governing consumer credit protection, such as the Truth in Lending, Equal Credit Opportunity, and Home Mortgage Disclosure Acts. Many of these consumer protection regulations apply to various lenders outside the banking industry as well as to banks.

Members of the Board of Governors are in continual contact with other policy makers in government. They frequently testify before congressional committees on the economy, monetary policy, banking supervision and regulation, consumer credit protection, financial markets, and other matters.

The Board has regular contact with members of the President's Council of Economic Advisers and other key economic officials. The Chairman also meets from time to time with the President of the United States and has regular meetings with the Secretary of the Treasury. The Chairman has formal responsibilities in the international arena as well.}}

Preventing asset bubbles

The board of directors of each Federal Reserve Bank District also has regulatory and supervisory responsibilities. For example, a member bank (private bank) is not permitted to give out too many loans to people who cannot pay them back. This is because too many defaults on loans will lead to a bank run. If the board of directors has judged that a member bank is performing or behaving poorly, it will report this to the Board of Governors. This policy is described in United States Code:

The punishment for making false statements or reports that overvalue an asset is also stated in the U.S. Code:

These aspects of the Federal Reserve System are the parts intended to prevent or minimize speculative asset bubbles, which ultimately lead to severe market corrections. The recent bubbles and corrections in energies, grains, equity and debt products and real estate cast doubt on the efficacy of these controls.

National payments system

The Federal Reserve plays an important role in the U.S. payments system. The twelve Federal Reserve Banks provide banking services to depository institutions and to the federal government. For depository institutions, they maintain accounts and provide various payment services, including collecting checks, electronically transferring funds, and distributing and receiving currency and coin. For the federal government, the Reserve Banks act as fiscal agents, paying Treasury checks; processing electronic payments; and issuing, transferring, and redeeming U.S. government securities.

In passing the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980, Congress reaffirmed its intention that the Federal Reserve should promote an efficient nationwide payments system. The act subjects all depository institutions, not just member commercial banks, to reserve requirements and grants them equal access to Reserve Bank payment services. It also encourages competition between the Reserve Banks and private-sector providers of payment services by requiring the Reserve Banks to charge fees for certain payments services listed in the act and to recover the costs of providing these services over the long run.

The Federal Reserve plays a vital role in both the nation's retail and wholesale payments systems, providing a variety of financial services to depository institutions. Retail payments are generally for relatively small-dollar amounts and often involve a depository institution's retail clients—individuals and smaller businesses. The Reserve Banks' retail services include distributing currency and coin, collecting checks, and electronically transferring funds through the automated clearinghouse system. By contrast, wholesale payments are generally for large-dollar amounts and often involve a depository institution's large corporate customers or counterparties, including other financial institutions. The Reserve Banks' wholesale services include electronically transferring funds through the Fedwire Funds Service and transferring securities issued by the U.S. government, its agencies, and certain other entities through the Fedwire Securities Service. Because of the large amounts of funds that move through the Reserve Banks every day, the System has policies and procedures to limit the risk to the Reserve Banks from a depository institution's failure to make or settle its payments.

The Federal Reserve Banks began a multi-year restructuring of their check operations in 2003 as part of a long-term strategy to respond to the declining use of checks by consumers and businesses and the greater use of electronics in check processing. The Reserve Banks will have reduced the number of full-service check processing locations from 45 in 2003 to 4 by early 2011.

Structure

The Federal Reserve System has both private and public components, and can make decisions without the permission of Congress or the President of the U.S. The System does not require public funding, and derives its authority and purpose from the Federal Reserve Act passed by Congress in 1913. The two main aspects of the Federal Reserve System are the Federal Open Market Committee and regional Federal Reserve Banks located throughout the country.

Board of Governors

The seven-member Board of Governors is a federal agency. It is charged with the overseeing of the 12 District Reserve Banks and setting national monetary policy. It also supervises and regulates the U.S. banking system in general. Governors are appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the Senate for staggered 14-year terms. The Board is required to make an annual report of operations to the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors are appointed by the President from among the sitting Governors. They both serve a four year term and they can be renominated as many times as the President chooses, until their terms on the Board of Governors expire.

List of members of the Board of Governors

The current members of the Board of Governors are as follows:

! Commissioner	! Entered office	! Term expires
Ben Bernanke(Chairman)	February 1, 2006	January 31, 2020January 31, 2014 (as Chairman)
Janet Yellen(Vice Chairman)	October 4, 2010	January 31, 2024October 4, 2014 (as Vice Chairman)
Elizabeth A. Duke	August 5, 2008	January 31, 2012
Daniel Tarullo	January 28, 2009	January 31, 2022
Sarah Bloom Raskin	October 4, 2010	January 31, 2016
Vacant
Vacant

Federal Open Market Committee

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) consists of 12 members, seven from the Board of Governors and 5 of the regional Federal Reserve Bank presidents. The FOMC oversees open market operations, the principal tool of national monetary policy. These operations affect the amount of Federal Reserve balances available to depository institutions, thereby influencing overall monetary and credit conditions. The FOMC also directs operations undertaken by the Federal Reserve in foreign exchange markets. The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, is a permanent member of the FOMC, while the rest of the bank presidents rotate at two- and three-year intervals. All Regional Reserve Bank presidents contribute to the committee's assessment of the economy and of policy options, but only the five presidents who are then members of the FOMC vote on policy decisions. The FOMC determines its own internal organization and, by tradition, elects the Chairman of the Board of Governors as its chairman and the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York as its vice chairman. It is informal policy within the FOMC for the Board of Governors and the New York Federal Reserve Bank president to vote with the Chairman of the FOMC; anyone who is not an expert on monetary policy traditionally votes with the chairman as well; and in any vote no more than two FOMC members can dissent. Formal meetings typically are held eight times each year in Washington, D.C. Nonvoting Reserve Bank presidents also participate in Committee deliberations and discussion. The FOMC generally meets eight times a year in telephone consultations and other meetings are held when needed.

Federal Reserve Banks

There are 12 Federal Reserve Banks, and they are located in the following cities: Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Richmond, Atlanta, Chicago, St Louis, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Dallas, and San Francisco. Each reserve Bank is responsible for member banks located in its district. The size of each district was set based upon the population distribution of the United States when the Federal Reserve Act was passed. Each regional Bank has a president, who is the chief executive officer of their Bank. Each regional Reserve Bank's president is nominated by their Bank's board of directors, but the nomination is contingent upon approval by the Board of Governors. Presidents serve five year terms and may be reappointed.

Each regional Bank's board consists of nine members. Members are broken down into three classes: A, B, and C. There are three board members in each class. Class A members are chosen by the regional Bank's shareholders, and are intended to represent member banks' interests. Member banks are divided into three categories large, medium, and small. Each category elects one of the three class A board members. Class B board members are also nominated by the region's member banks, but class B board members are supposed to represent the interests of the public. Lastly, class C board members are nominated by the Board of Governors, and are also intended to represent the interests of the public.

A member bank is a private institution and owns stock in its regional Federal Reserve Bank. All nationally chartered banks hold stock in one of the Federal Reserve Banks. State chartered banks may choose to be members (and hold stock in their regional Federal Reserve bank), upon meeting certain standards. About 38% of U.S. banks are members of their regional Federal Reserve Bank. The amount of stock a member bank must own is equal to 3% of its combined capital and surplus. However, holding stock in a Federal Reserve bank is not like owning stock in a publicly traded company. These stocks cannot be sold or traded, and member banks do not control the Federal Reserve Bank as a result of owning this stock. The charter and organization of each Federal Reserve Bank is established by law and cannot be altered by the member banks. Member banks, do however, elect six of the nine members of the Federal Reserve Banks' boards of directors. From the profits of the Regional Bank of which it is a member, a member bank receives a dividend equal to 6% of their purchased stock. The remainder of the regional Federal Reserve Banks' profits is given over to the United States Treasury Department. In 2009, the Federal Reserve Banks distributed $1.4 billion in dividends to member banks and returned $47 billion to the U.S. Treasury.

Legal status of regional Federal Reserve Banks

The Federal Reserve Banks have an intermediate legal status, with some features of private corporations and some features of public federal agencies. The United States has an interest in the Federal Reserve Banks as tax-exempt federally-created instrumentalities whose profits belong to the federal government, but this interest is not proprietary. In ''Lewis v. United States'', the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit stated that: "The Reserve Banks are not federal instrumentalities for purposes of the FTCA [the Federal Tort Claims Act], but are independent, privately owned and locally controlled corporations." The opinion went on to say, however, that: "The Reserve Banks have properly been held to be federal instrumentalities for some purposes." Another relevant decision is ''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 Board of Governors, which is a federal agency.

Accountability

The Federal Reserve System and the individual banks undergo regular audits by the GAO and an outside auditor. GAO audits are limited and do not cover "most of the Fed’s monetary policy actions or decisions, including discount window lending (direct loans to financial institutions), open-market operations and any other transactions made under the direction of the Federal Open Market Committee" ...[nor may the GAO audit] "dealings with foreign governments and other central banks." Various statutory changes, including the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, have been proposed to broaden the scope of the audits. Bloomberg L.P. News brought a lawsuit against the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System to force the Board to reveal the identities of firms for which it has provided guarantees. Bloomberg, L.P. won at the trial court level, and as of early September 2010 the case is on appeal at the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Monetary policy

The term "monetary policy" refers to the actions undertaken by a central bank, such as the Federal Reserve, to influence the availability and cost of money and credit to help promote national economic goals. What happens to money and credit affects interest rates (the cost of credit) and the performance of an economy. The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 gave the Federal Reserve authority to set monetary policy in the United States.

Interbank lending is the basis of policy

The Federal Reserve sets monetary policy by influencing the Federal funds rate, which is the rate of interbank lending of excess reserves. The rate that banks charge each other for these loans is determined in the interbank market but the Federal Reserve influences this rate through the three "tools" of monetary policy described in the ''Tools'' section below.

The Federal Funds rate is a short-term interest rate the FOMC focuses on directly. This rate ultimately affects the longer-term interest rates throughout the economy. A summary of the basis and implementation of monetary policy is stated by the Federal Reserve:

This influences the economy through its effect on the quantity of reserves that banks use to make loans. Policy actions that add reserves to the banking system encourage lending at lower interest rates thus stimulating growth in money, credit, and the economy. Policy actions that absorb reserves work in the opposite direction. The Fed's task is to supply enough reserves to support an adequate amount of money and credit, avoiding the excesses that result in inflation and the shortages that stifle economic growth.

Tools

There are three main tools of monetary policy that the Federal Reserve uses to influence the amount of reserves in private banks:

!Tool	!Description
Open market operations	Purchases and sales of U.S. Treasury and federal agency securities—the Federal Reserve's principal tool for implementing monetary policy. The Federal Reserve's objective for open market operations has varied over the years. During the 1980s, the focus gradually shifted toward attaining a specified level of the federal funds rate (the rate that banks charge each other for overnight loans of federal funds, which are the reserves held by banks at the Fed), a process that was largely complete by the end of the decade.
Discount rate	The interest rate charged to commercial banks and other depository institutions on loans they receive from their regional Federal Reserve Bank's lending facility—the discount window.
Reserve requirements	The amount of funds that a depository institution must hold in reserve against specified deposit liabilities.

Federal funds rate and open market operations

The Federal Reserve System implements monetary policy largely by targeting the federal funds rate. This is the rate that banks charge each other for overnight loans of federal funds, which are the reserves held by banks at the Fed. This rate is actually determined by the market and is not explicitly mandated by the Fed. The Fed therefore tries to align the effective federal funds rate with the targeted rate by adding or subtracting from the money supply through open market operations. The Federal Reserve System usually adjusts the federal funds rate target by 0.25% or 0.50% at a time.

Open market operations allow the Federal Reserve to increase or decrease the amount of money in the banking system as necessary to balance the Federal Reserve's dual mandates. Open market operations are done through the sale and purchase of United States Treasury security, sometimes called "Treasury bills" or more informally "T-bills" or "Treasuries". The Federal Reserve buys Treasury bills from its primary dealers. The purchase of these securities affects the federal funds rate, because primary dealers have accounts at depository institutions.

The Federal Reserve education website describes open market operations as follows:

Repurchase agreements

To smooth temporary or cyclical changes in the money supply, the desk engages in repurchase agreements (repos) with its primary dealers. Repos are essentially secured, short-term lending by the Fed. On the day of the transaction, the Fed deposits money in a primary dealer's reserve account, and receives the promised securities as collateral. When the transaction matures, the process unwinds: the Fed returns the collateral and charges the primary dealer's reserve account for the principal and accrued interest. The term of the repo (the time between settlement and maturity) can vary from 1 day (called an overnight repo) to 65 days.

Discount rate

The Federal Reserve System also directly sets the "discount rate", which is the interest rate for "discount window lending", overnight loans that member banks borrow directly from the Fed. This rate is generally set at a rate close to 100 basis points above the target federal funds rate. The idea is to encourage banks to seek alternative funding before using the "discount rate" option. The equivalent operation by the European Central Bank is referred to as the "marginal lending facility".

Both the discount rate and the federal funds rate influence the prime rate, which is usually about 3 percent higher than the federal funds rate.

Reserve requirements

Another instrument of monetary policy adjustment employed by the Federal Reserve System is the fractional reserve requirement, also known as the required reserve ratio. The required reserve ratio sets the balance that the Federal Reserve System requires a depository institution to hold in the Federal Reserve Banks, which depository institutions trade in the federal funds market discussed above. The required reserve ratio is set by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The reserve requirements have changed over time and some of the history of these changes is published by the Federal Reserve.

+ Reserve Requirements in the U.S. Federal Reserve System
	Percentage of liabilities

As a response to the financial crisis of 2008, the Federal Reserve now makes interest payments on depository institutions' required and excess reserve balances. The payment of interest on excess reserves gives the central bank greater opportunity to address credit market conditions while maintaining the federal funds rate close to the target rate set by the FOMC.

New facilities

In order to address problems related to the subprime mortgage crisis and United States housing bubble, several new tools have been created. The first new tool, called the Term Auction Facility, was added on December 12, 2007. It was first announced as a temporary tool but there have been suggestions that this new tool may remain in place for a prolonged period of time. Creation of the second new tool, called the Term Securities Lending Facility, was announced on March 11, 2008. The main difference between these two facilities is that the Term Auction Facility is used to inject cash into the banking system whereas the Term Securities Lending Facility is used to inject treasury securities into the banking system. Creation of the third tool, called the Primary Dealer Credit Facility (PDCF), was announced on March 16, 2008. The PDCF was a fundamental change in Federal Reserve policy because now the Fed is able to lend directly to primary dealers, which was previously against Fed policy. The differences between these 3 new facilities is described by the Federal Reserve:

Some of the measures taken by the Federal Reserve to address this mortgage crisis have not been used since The Great Depression. The Federal Reserve gives a brief summary of these new facilities:

A fourth facility, the Term Deposit Facility, was announced December 9, 2009, and approved April 30, 2010, with an effective date of Jun 4, 2010. The Term Deposit Facility allows Reserve Banks to offer term deposits to institutions that are eligible to receive earnings on their balances at Reserve Banks. Term deposits are intended to facilitate the implementation of monetary policy by providing a tool by which the Federal Reserve can manage the aggregate quantity of reserve balances held by depository institutions. Funds placed in term deposits are removed from the accounts of participating institutions for the life of the term deposit and thus drain reserve balances from the banking system.

Term auction facility

The Term Auction Facility is a program in which the Federal Reserve auctions term funds to depository institutions. The creation of this facility was announced by the Federal Reserve on December 12, 2007 and was done in conjunction with the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the European Central Bank, and the Swiss National Bank to address elevated pressures in short-term funding markets. The reason it was created is because banks were not lending funds to one another and banks in need of funds were refusing to go to the discount window. Banks were not lending money to each other because there was a fear that the loans would not be paid back. Banks refused to go to the discount window because it is usually associated with the stigma of bank failure. Under the Term Auction Facility, the identity of the banks in need of funds is protected in order to avoid the stigma of bank failure. Foreign exchange swap lines with the European Central Bank and Swiss National Bank were opened so the banks in Europe could have access to U.S. dollars. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke briefly described this facility to the U.S. House of Representatives on January 17, 2008:

It is also described in the ''Term Auction Facility FAQ''

Term securities lending facility

The Term Securities Lending Facility is a 28-day facility that will offer Treasury general collateral to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's primary dealers in exchange for other program-eligible collateral. It is intended to promote liquidity in the financing markets for Treasury and other collateral and thus to foster the functioning of financial markets more generally. Like the Term Auction Facility, the TSLF was done in conjunction with the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the European Central Bank, and the Swiss National Bank. The resource allows dealers to switch debt that is less liquid for U.S. government securities that are easily tradable. It is anticipated by Federal Reserve officials that the primary dealers, which include Goldman Sachs Group. Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley, will lend the Treasuries on to other firms in return for cash. That will help the dealers finance their balance sheets. The currency swap lines with the European Central Bank and Swiss National Bank were increased.

Primary dealer credit facility

The Primary Dealer Credit Facility (PDCF) is an overnight loan facility that will provide funding to primary dealers in exchange for a specified range of eligible collateral and is intended to foster the functioning of financial markets more generally. This new facility marks a fundamental change in Federal Reserve policy because now primary dealers can borrow directly from the Fed when this previously was not permitted.

Interest on reserves

, the Federal Reserve banks will pay interest on reserve balances (required & excess) held by depository institutions. The rate is set at the lowest federal funds rate during the reserve maintenance period of an institution, less 75bp. As of October 23, 2008, the Fed has lowered the spread to a mere 35 bp.

Term deposit facility

The Term Deposit Facility is a program through which the Federal Reserve Banks will offer interest-bearing term deposits to eligible institutions. By removing "excess deposits" from participating banks, the overall level of reserves available for lending is reduced, which should result in increased market interest rates, acting as a brake on economic activity and inflation. The Federal Reserve has stated that:

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The Federal Reserve initially authorized up to five "small-value offerings are designed to ensure the effectiveness of TDF operations and to provide eligible institutions with an opportunity to gain familiarity with term deposit procedures." After three of the offering auctions were successfully completed, it was announced that small-value auctions would continue on an on-going basis.

The Term Deposit Facility is essentially a tool available to reverse the efforts that have been employed to provide liquidity to the financial markets and to reduce the amount of capital available to the economy. As stated in Bloomberg News:

Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, testifying before House Committee on Financial Services, described the Term Deposit Facility and other facilities to Congress in the following terms:

Asset Backed Commercial Paper Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility

The Asset Backed Commercial Paper Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility (ABCPMMMFLF) was also called the AMLF. The Facility began operations on September 22, 2008, and was closed on February 1, 2010.

All U.S. depository institutions, bank holding companies (parent companies or U.S. broker-dealer affiliates), or U.S. branches and agencies of foreign banks were eligible to borrow under this facility pursuant to the discretion of the FRBB.

Collateral eligible for pledge under the Facility was required to meet the following criteria:

was purchased by Borrower on or after September 19, 2008 from a registered investment company that held itself out as a money market mutual fund;

was purchased by Borrower at the Fund's acquisition cost as adjusted for amortization of premium or accretion of discount on the ABCP through the date of its purchase by Borrower;

was rated at the time pledged to FRBB, not lower than A1, F1, or P1 by at least two major rating agencies or, if rated by only one major rating agency, the ABCP must have been rated within the top rating category by that agency;

was issued by an entity organized under the laws of the United States or a political subdivision thereof under a program that was in existence on September 18, 2008; and

had a stated maturity that did not exceed 120 days if the Borrower was a bank or 270 days for non-bank Borrowers.

Commercial Paper Funding Facility

The Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF): on October 7, 2008 the Federal Reserve further expanded the collateral it will loan against, to include commercial paper. The action made the Fed a crucial source of credit for non-financial businesses in addition to commercial banks and investment firms. Fed officials said they'll buy as much of the debt as necessary to get the market functioning again. They refused to say how much that might be, but they noted that around $1.3 trillion worth of commercial paper would qualify. There was $1.61 trillion in outstanding commercial paper, seasonally adjusted, on the market as of October 1, 2008, according to the most recent data from the Fed. That was down from $1.70 trillion in the previous week. Since the summer of 2007, the market has shrunk from more than $2.2 trillion. This program lent out a total $738 billion before it was closed. Forty-five out of 81 of the companies participating in this program were foreign firms. Research shows that Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) recipients were twice as likely to participate in the program than other commercial paper issuers who did not take advantage of the TARP bailout. The Fed incurred no losses from the CPFF.

Quantitative policy

A little-used tool of the Federal Reserve is the ''quantitative policy''. With that the Federal Reserve actually buys back corporate bonds and mortgage backed securities held by banks or other financial institutions. This in effect puts money back into the financial institutions and allows them to make loans and conduct normal business. The Federal Reserve Board used this policy in the early 1990s when the U.S. economy experienced the savings and loan crisis.

The bursting of the United States housing bubble prompted the Fed to buy mortgage-backed securities for the first time in November 2008. Over six weeks, a total of $1.25 trillion were purchased in order stabilize the housing market, about one-fifth of all U.S. government-backed mortgages.

Measurement of economic variables

The Federal Reserve records and publishes large amounts of data. A few websites where data is published are at the Board of Governors Economic Data and Research page, the Board of Governors statistical releases and historical data page, and at the St. Louis Fed's FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) page. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) examines many economic indicators prior to determining monetary policy.

Some criticism involves economic data compiled by the Fed. The Fed sponsors much of the monetary economics research in the U.S., and Lawrence H. White objects that this makes it less likely for researchers to publish findings challenging the status quo.

Net worth of households and nonprofit organizations

The net worth of households and nonprofit organizations in the United States is published by the Federal Reserve in a report titled, ''Flow of Funds''. At the end of fiscal year 2008, this value was $51.5 trillion.

Money supply

The most common measures are named M0 (narrowest), M1, M2, and M3. In the United States they are defined by the Federal Reserve as follows:

!Measure	!Definition
M0	The total of all physical currency, plus accounts at the central bank that can be exchanged for physical currency.
M1	M0 + those portions of M0 held as reserves or vault cash + the amount in demand accounts ("checking" or "current" accounts).
M2	M1 + most savings accounts, money market accounts, and small denomination time deposits (certificates of deposit of under $100,000).
M3	M2 + all other CDs, deposits of eurodollars and repurchase agreements.

The Federal Reserve stopped publishing M3 statistics in March 2006, saying that the data cost a lot to collect but did not provide significantly useful information. The other three money supply measures continue to be provided in detail.

Personal consumption expenditures price index

The Personal consumption expenditures price index, also referred to as simply the PCE price index, is used as one measure of the value of money. It is a United States-wide indicator of the average increase in prices for all domestic personal consumption. Using a variety of data including U.S. Consumer Price Index and Producer Price Index prices, it is derived from the largest component of the Gross Domestic Product in the BEA's National Income and Product Accounts, personal consumption expenditures.

One of the Fed's main roles is to maintain price stability, which means that the Fed's ability to keep a low inflation rate is a long-term measure of the their success. Although the Fed is not required to maintain inflation within a specific range, their long run target for the growth of the PCE price index is between 1.5 and 2 percent. There has been debate among policy makers as to whether or not the Federal Reserve should have a specific inflation targeting policy.

Inflation and the economy

There are two types of inflation that are closely tied to each other. Monetary inflation is an increase in the money supply. Price inflation is a sustained increase in the general level of prices, which is equivalent to a decline in the value or purchasing power of money. If the supply of money and credit increases too rapidly over many months (monetary inflation), the result will usually be price inflation. Price inflation does not always increase in direct proportion to monetary inflation; it is also affected by the velocity of money and other factors. With price inflation, a dollar buys less and less over time.

The effects of monetary and price inflation include:

Price inflation makes workers worse off if their incomes don't rise as rapidly as prices.

Pensioners living on a fixed income are worse off if their savings do not increase more rapidly than prices.

Lenders lose because they will be repaid with dollars that aren't worth as much.

Savers lose because the dollar they save today will not buy as much when they are ready to spend it.

Debtors win because the dollar they borrow today will be repaid with dollars that aren't worth as much.

Businesses and people will find it harder to plan and therefore may decrease investment in future projects.

Owners of financial assets suffer.

Interest rate-sensitive industries, like mortgage companies, suffer as monetary inflation drives up long-term interest rates and Federal Reserve tightening raises short-term rates.

In his 1995 book ''The Case Against the Fed'', economist Murray N. Rothbard argues that price inflation is caused only by an increase in the money supply, and only banks increase the money supply, then banks, including the Federal Reserve, are the only source of inflation.

Adherents of the Austrian School of economic theory blame the economic crisis in the late 2000s on the Federal Reserve's policy, particularly under the leadership of Alan Greenspan, of credit expansion through historically low interest rates starting in 2001, which they claim enabled the United States housing bubble.

Unemployment rate

One of the stated goals of monetary policy is maximum employment. The unemployment rate statistics are collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and like the PCE price index are used as a barometer of the nation's economic health, and thus as a measure of the success of an administration's economic policies. Since 1980, both parties have made progressive changes in the basis for calculating unemployment, so that the numbers now quoted cannot be compared directly to the corresponding rates from earlier administrations, or to the rest of the world.

Budget

The Federal Reserve is self-funded. The vast majority (90%+) of Fed revenues come from open market operations, specifically the interest on the portfolio of Treasury securities as well as "capital gains/losses" that may arise from the buying/selling of the securities and their derivatives as part of Open Market Operations. The balance of revenues come from sales of financial services (check and electronic payment processing) and discount window loans. The Board of Governors (Federal Reserve Board) creates a budget report once per year for Congress. There are two reports with budget information. The one that lists the complete balance statements with income and expenses as well as the net profit or loss is the large report simply titled, "Annual Report". It also includes data about employment throughout the system. The other report, which explains in more detail the expenses of the different aspects of the whole system, is called "Annual Report: Budget Review". These are comprehensive reports with many details and can be found at the Board of Governors' website under the section "Reports to Congress"

Net worth

Balance sheet

One of the keys to understanding the Federal Reserve is the Federal Reserve balance sheet (or balance statement). In accordance with Section 11 of the Federal Reserve Act, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System publishes once each week the "Consolidated Statement of Condition of All Federal Reserve Banks" showing the condition of each Federal Reserve bank and a consolidated statement for all Federal Reserve banks. The Board of Governors requires that excess earnings of the Reserve Banks be transferred to the Treasury as interest on Federal Reserve notes.

Below is the balance sheet as of July 6, 2011 (in billions of dollars):

{| cellpadding="5" cellspacing="5" style="float:left;" |- | style="vertical-align:top;" | {| cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="margin:auto; border:1px solid black;border-color:black;border-collapse:collapse;" |- ! colspan="3" style="background:#ffdead;border-bottom:1px solid black;" | ASSETS: |- | Gold Stock | || style="text-align:right;" | 11.04 |- | Special Drawing Rights Certificate Acct. | || style="text-align:right;" | 5.20 |- | Treasury Currency Outstanding (Coin) | || style="text-align:right;" | 43.98 |- | Securities Held Outright | || style="text-align:right;" | 2647.94 |- |    U.S. Treasury Securities | || style="text-align:right;" | 1623.78 |- |       Bills | || style="text-align:right;" | 18.42 |- |       Notes and Bonds, nominal | || style="text-align:right;" | 1530.79 |- |       Notes and Bonds, inflation-indexed | || style="text-align:right;" | 65.52 |- |       Inflation Compensation | || style="text-align:right;" | 9.04 |- |    Federal Agency Debt Securities | || style="text-align:right;" | 115.30 |- |    Mortgage-Backed Securities | || style="text-align:right;" | 908.85 |- | Repurchase Agreements | || style="text-align:right;" | 0 |- | Loans | || style="text-align:right;" | 12.74 |- | Primary Credit | || style="text-align:right;" | 12 |- | Secondary Credit | || style="text-align:right;" | 0 |- | Seasonal Credit | || style="text-align:right;" | 53 |- |    Credit Extended to AIG Inc. | || style="text-align:right;" | 0 |- |    Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility | || style="text-align:right;" | 12.67 |- |    Other Credit Extended | || style="text-align:right;" | 0 |- | Commercial Paper Funding Facility LLC | || style="text-align:right;" | 0 |- | Net portfolio holdings of Maiden Lane LLC, Maiden Lane II LLC, and Maiden Lane III LLC | || style="text-align:right;" | 60.32 |- | Preferred Interest in AIG Life-Insurance Subsidiaries | || style="text-align:right;" | 0 |- | Net Holdings of TALF LLC | || style="text-align:right;" | 0.75 |- | Float | || style="text-align:right;" | -1.05 |- | Central Bank Liquidity Swaps | || style="text-align:right;" | 0 |- | Other Assets | || style="text-align:right;" | 133.56 |- ! style="text-align:left" | Total Assets | ! style="text-align:right;" | 2914.51 |} | style="vertical-align:top;" | {| cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="float:left; border:1px solid black;border-color:black;border-collapse:collapse;" |- ! colspan="3" style="background:#ffdead;border-bottom:1px solid black;" | LIABILITIES: |- | Currency in Circulation | || style="text-align:right;" | 1031.30 |- | Reverse repurchase agreements | || style="text-align:right;" | 68.09 |- | Deposits | || style="text-align:right;" | 91.12 |- |    Term Deposits | || style="text-align:right;" | 0 |- |    U.S. Treasury, general account | || style="text-align:right;" | 76.56 |- |    U.S. Treasury, supplementary financing account | || style="text-align:right;" | 5 |- |    Foreign official | || style="text-align:right;" | 0.17 |- |    Service Related | || style="text-align:right;" | 2.53 |- |    Other Deposits | || style="text-align:right;" | 6.85 |- | Funds from AIG, held as agent | || style="text-align:right;" | 0 |- | Other Liabilities | || style="text-align:right; vertical-align:top;" | 73.06 |- ! style="text-align:left" | Total liabilities | ! style="text-align:right;" | 1263.73 |} | style="vertical-align:top;" | {| cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="float:left; border:1px solid black;border-color:black;border-collapse:collapse;" |- ! colspan="3" style="background:#ffdead;border-bottom:1px solid black;" | CAPITAL (AKA Net Equity) |- | Capital Paid In || || style="text-align:right;" | 26.71 |- | Surplus || || style="text-align:right;" | 25.91 |- | Other Capital || || style="text-align:right;" | 4.16 |- ! style="text-align:left" | Total Capital | ! style="text-align:right;" | 56.78 |- ! colspan="3" style="background:#ffdead;border:1px solid black;" | MEMO (off-balance-sheet items) |- | style="width:100px;" | Marketable securities held in custody for foreign official and international accounts | | style="text-align:right;" | 3445.42 |- |    U.S. Treasury Securities || | style="text-align:right;" | 2708 |- |    Federal Agency Securities || | style="text-align:right;" | 737.31 |- | Securities lent to dealers || || style="text-align:right;" | 30.46 |- |    Overnight | || style="text-align:right;" | 30.46 |- |    Term|| || style="text-align:right;" | 0 |- | || || |} |}

Analyzing the Federal Reserve's balance sheet reveals a number of facts:

The Fed has over $11 billion in gold stock (certificates), which represents the Fed's financial interest in the statutory-determined value of gold turned over to the U.S. Treasury in accordance with the Gold Reserve Act on January 30, 1934. The value reported here is based on a statutory valuation of $42 2/9 per fine troy ounce. As of March 2009, the market value of that gold is around $247.8 billion.

The Fed holds more than $1.8 billion in coinage, not as a liability but as an asset. The Treasury Department is actually in charge of creating coins and U.S. Notes. The Fed then buys coinage from the Treasury by increasing the liability assigned to the Treasury's account.

The Fed holds at least $534 billion of the national debt. The "securities held outright" value used to directly represent the Fed's share of the national debt, but after the creation of new facilities in the winter of 2007–2008, this number has been reduced and the difference is shown with values from some of the new facilities.

The Fed has no assets from overnight repurchase agreements. Repurchase agreements are the primary asset of choice for the Fed in dealing in the open market. Repo assets are bought by creating depository institution liabilities and directed to the bank the primary dealer uses when they sell into the open market.

The more than $1 trillion in Federal Reserve Note liabilities represents nearly the total value of all dollar bills in existence; over $176 billion is held by the Fed (not in circulation); and the "net" figure of $863 billion represents the total face value of Federal Reserve Notes in circulation.

The $916 billion in deposit liabilities of depository institutions shows that dollar bills are not the only source of government money. Banks can swap deposit liabilities of the Fed for Federal Reserve Notes back and forth as needed to match demand from customers, and the Fed can have the Bureau of Engraving and Printing create the paper bills as needed to match demand from banks for paper money. The amount of money printed has no relation to the growth of the monetary base (M0).

The $93.5 billion in Treasury liabilities shows that the Treasury Department does not use private banks but rather uses the Fed directly (the lone exception to this rule is Treasury Tax and Loan because the government worries that pulling too much money out of the private banking system during tax time could be disruptive).

The $1.6 billion foreign liability represents the amount of foreign central bank deposits with the Federal Reserve.

The $9.7 billion in 'other liabilities and accrued dividends' represents partly the amount of money owed so far in the year to member banks for the 6% dividend on the 3% of their net capital they are required to contribute in exchange for nonvoting stock their regional Reserve Bank in order to become a member. Member banks are also subscribed for an additional 3% of their net capital, which can be called at the Federal Reserve's discretion. All nationally chartered banks must be members of a Federal Reserve Bank, and state-chartered banks have the choice to become members or not.

Total capital represents the profit the Fed has earned, which comes mostly from assets they purchase with the deposit and note liabilities they create. Excess capital is then turned over to the Treasury Department and Congress to be included into the Federal Budget as "Miscellaneous Revenue".

In addition, the balance sheet also indicates which assets are held as collateral against Federal Reserve Notes. {| cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="border:1px solid black;border-color:black;border-collapse:collapse;" ! colspan="3" style="background:#ffdead; border-bottom:1px solid black;"|Federal Reserve Notes and Collateral |- | Federal Reserve Notes Outstanding || || style="text-align:right;"|1128.63 |- |    Less: Notes held by F.R. Banks || || style="text-align:right;"|200.90 |- |    Federal Reserve notes to be collateralized || || style="text-align:right;"|927.73 |- | Collateral held against Federal Reserve notes || || style="text-align:right;"|927.73 |- |    Gold certificate account || || style="text-align:right;"|11.04 |- |    Special drawing rights certificate account || || style="text-align:right;"|5.20 |- |    U.S. Treasury, agency debt, and mortgage-backed securities pledged || || style="text-align:right;"|911.50 |- |    Other assets pledged || || style="text-align:right;"|0 |}

See also

Consumer Leverage Ratio

Core inflation

Criticism of the Federal Reserve

Economic reports by U.S. government agencies

Executive Order 11110

Fed model

Federal Reserve 800 billion dollar Consumer Loan and bond plan

Federal Reserve Police

Federal Reserve Statistical Release

Fort Knox Bullion Depository

Free banking

Gold standard

Government debt

Greenspan put

History of Federal Open Market Committee actions

Independent Treasury

Legal Tender Cases

Money market

Term auction facility

References

Bibliography

Recent

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Epstein, Lita & Martin, Preston (2003). ''The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Federal Reserve''. Alpha Books. ISBN 0-02-864323-2.

Greider, William (1987). ''Secrets of the Temple''. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-67556-7; nontechnical book explaining the structures, functions, and history of the Federal Reserve, focusing specifically on the tenure of Paul Volcker

R. W. Hafer. ''The Federal Reserve System: An Encyclopedia''. Greenwood Press, 2005. 451 pp, 280 entries; ISBN 4-313-32839-0.

Meltzer, Allan H. ''A History of the Federal Reserve, Volume 1: 1913–1951'' (2004) ISBN 978-0-226-51999-9 (cloth) and ISBN 978-0-226-52000-1 (paper)

Meltzer, Allan H. ''A History of the Federal Reserve, Volume 2: Book 1, 1951–1969'' (2009) ISBN 978-0-226-52001-8

Meltzer, Allan H. ''A History of the Federal Reserve, Volume 2: Book 2, 1969–1985'' (2009) ISBN 978-0-226-51994-4; In three volumes published so far, Meltzer covers the first 70 years of the Fed in considerable detail

Meyer, Lawrence H (2004). ''A Term at the Fed: An Insider's View''. HarperBusiness. ISBN 0-06-054270-5; focuses on the period from 1996 to 2002, emphasizing Alan Greenspan's chairmanship during the Asian financial crisis, the stock market boom and the financial aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Woodward, Bob. ''Maestro: Greenspan's Fed and the American Boom'' (2000) study of Greenspan in 1990s.

Historical

J. Lawrence Broz; ''The International Origins of the Federal Reserve System'' Cornell University Press. 1997.

Vincent P. Carosso, "The Wall Street Trust from Pujo through Medina", ''Business History Review'' (1973) 47:421-37

Chandler, Lester V. ''American Monetary Policy, 1928–41.'' (1971).

Epstein, Gerald and Thomas Ferguson. "Monetary Policy, Loan Liquidation and Industrial Conflict: Federal Reserve System Open Market Operations in 1932". ''Journal of Economic History'' 44 (December 1984): 957–84. in JSTOR

Milton Friedman and Anna Jacobson Schwartz, A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960 (1963)

G. Edward Griffin, ''The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve'' (1994) ISBN 0-912986-21-2

Paul J. Kubik, "Federal Reserve Policy during the Great Depression: The Impact of Interwar Attitudes regarding Consumption and Consumer Credit". ''Journal of Economic Issues''. Volume: 30. Issue: 3. Publication Year: 1996. pp 829+.

Link, Arthur. ''Wilson: The New Freedom'' (1956) pp 199–240.

Livingston, James. ''Origins of the Federal Reserve System: Money, Class, and Corporate Capitalism, 1890–1913'' (1986), Marxist approach to 1913 policy

Mayhew, Anne. "Ideology and the Great Depression: Monetary History Rewritten". ''Journal of Economic Issues'' 17 (June 1983): 353–60.

Mullins, Eustace C. "Secrets of the Federal Reserve", 1952. John McLaughlin. ISBN 0-9656492-1-0

Roberts, Priscilla. "'Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?' The Federal Reserve System's Founding Fathers and Allied Finances in the First World War", ''Business History Review'' (1998) 72: 585–603

Bernard Shull, "The Fourth Branch: The Federal Reserve's Unlikely Rise to Power and Influence" (2005) ISBN 1-56720-624-7

Steindl, Frank G. ''Monetary Interpretations of the Great Depression.'' (1995).

Temin, Peter. ''Did Monetary Forces Cause the Great Depression?'' (1976).

Wells, Donald R. ''The Federal Reserve System: A History'' (2004)

West, Robert Craig. ''Banking Reform and the Federal Reserve, 1863–1923'' (1977)

Wicker, Elmus. "A Reconsideration of Federal Reserve Policy during the 1920–1921 Depression", ''Journal of Economic History'' (1966) 26: 223–238, in JSTOR

Wicker, Elmus. ''Federal Reserve Monetary Policy, 1917–33.'' (1966).

Wicker, Elmus. ''The Great Debate on Banking Reform: Nelson Aldrich and the Origins of the Fed'' Ohio State University Press, 2005.

Wood, John H. ''A History of Central Banking in Great Britain and the United States'' (2005)

Wueschner; Silvano A. ''Charting Twentieth-Century Monetary Policy: Herbert Hoover and Benjamin Strong, 1917–1927'' Greenwood Press. (1999)

External links

Official Federal Reserve websites and information

Federal Reserve Reports to Congress

The Federal Reserve in Plain English—An easy-to-read guide to the structure and functions of the Federal Reserve System

ebook: The Federal Reserve System—Purposes and Functions

Ask Dr. Econ – An educational resource from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve — Official website

"The Federal Reserve System in Brief" — at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

"What is the Fed?" — at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

Decision of the Reserve Bank Organization Committee Determining the Federal Reserve Districts and the Location of Federal Reserve Banks under the Federal Reserve Act Approved December 23, 1913, April 2, 1914; With Statement of the Committee in Relation Thereto, April 10, 1914. 27 pages. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1914.

Federal Reserve District Divisions and Location of Federal Reserve Banks and Head Offices, Hearings before the Reserve Bank Organization Committee United States. Reserve Bank Organization Committee, 1914.

Historical Beginnings ... The Federal Reserve by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston

Federal Reserve Districts and Banks

Federal Reserve Education

Federal Reserve Financial Services

Open Market operations

NY FED: Open Market Operations

Repurchase agreements

NY FED: Repurchase and Reverse Repurchase Transactions

Discount window

The Official FED Discount Window information website

Economic indicators

Consumer Price Index Calculator

Federal Reserve publications

Modern Money Mechanics (out of print)

Publications Catalog

Federal Funds Rate Changes(Base Deposit Rate)

Other websites describing the Federal Reserve

"How 'The Fed' Works" — at HowStuffWorks.com

"Federal Reserve Update" — money-rates.com

Macroeconomic Effects of Interest Rate Cuts, by Jason Cawley, Wolfram Demonstrations Project, 2007.

All 12 Federal Reserve Banks on a Google Map

Sites critical of the Federal Reserve

Ludwig von Mises Institute

Money, Banking, and the Federal Reserve

Foundation for Economic Education

Audit The Fed

Category:Banks established in 1913 United States Category:Financial regulatory authorities of the United States Category:Government agencies established in 1913 Category:1913 establishments in the United States

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David Noel James, Baron James of Blackheath CBE (born December 7, 1937) is a British businessman and corporate troubleshooter and Conservative life peer.

Career

James has had a varied career in the city of London. Between 1959 and 1964, he trained with Lloyds Bank, joining Ford Credit's launch team in 1964. He then became a director of many companies, often in trouble, to assist their recovery: in 1973 he joined Cork Gulley to rescue Cedar Holdings; in 1989 he was appointed chairman of Eagle Trust; other directorships have included British Shoe Corporation, LEP group, Dan-Air, North Sea Assets and Central & Sheerwood. During his time at Eagle Trust he triggered the Iraqi supergun affair. Whilst visiting Eagle-owned Walter Somers factory in Halesowen in 1990, he noticed the muzzle of what appeared to be a large gun. He informed MI6, giving them one of their first leads. He served a term under David Rowland on the Council of Lloyd's and chaired a committee which controversially allowed corporate capital to underwrite on more favourable terms.

In late 2000, James was appointed as chairman of the ailing Millennium Dome project, a high profile position, and was credited with saving the attraction from financial collapse. In 2005 he attempted to make a bid for troubled carmakers MG Rover.

Ahead of the 2005 general election, James conducted a review for the Conservatives that identified £35 billion of state sector savings. The disputed figures were heavily used by then Party leader, Michael Howard. After the election defeat, Howard and Shadow Chancellor George Osborne appointed James to head a new Conservative watchdog to monitor the way the third term Labour administration delivers on its promises to cut costs. He has been vocal about his concerns for the financial management of the London 2012 Olympics.

In April 2006 it was announced that James had been nominated for a Life Peerage by the Conservative Party The news had already been revealed in a list leaked to ''The Times'' that eventually led to the Cash for Peerages scandal. James himself had given a relatively small amount to the Conservatives. He was gazetted as the 'Baron James of Blackheath', of Wildbrooks in the County of West Sussex on 9 June 2006.

In November 2010 Lord James claimed in the House of Lords that he had been approached by a secretive "megarich" organization, which James referred to only as 'Foundation X', willing to lend billions of pounds, interest-free, to the UK government.

He has worked as a Consultant for Cerberus Capital Management.

Lord James is married but has no children. He has a particular interest in music and cricket. He is Chairman of the British Racing Club of horses.

"Foundation X" speech

James attracted some press and blog attention after a speech in the House of Lords on November 1, 2010, in which he claimed to have been approached by an unnamed organization wishing to fund massive public works projects in the UK with vast currency reserves backed by gold bullion. A Labour Party staff member and political blogger who wrote about the story speculated that the organization in question is the Office of International Treasury Control. possibly an organization though unknown or unacknowledged by any government to date. However, James has stated that he had not been approached by the Office of International Treasury Control, that there were no links between Foundation X and the Office of International Treasury Control, that the Foundation X was a viable organization, and that the offer was in good faith. Further, in the course of the recorded speech James explicitly, albeit apparently unconsciously, conflates Foundation X with the Vatican Bank.

On Saturday November 6, 2010; the UK Treasury issued a statement which contradicted James' earlier claims; denying that any meeting took place between Lords James & Sassoon and a representative of the group which had being referred to as 'Foundation-X'.

References

External links

Profile: David James the Dome's crisis manager ''The Guardian'' 9 September 2000

Category:1937 births Category:Living people Category:Conservative Party (UK) life peers Category:British businesspeople Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire

name	Eustace Mullins
birth date	October 30, 1923
birth place	Roanoke, Virginia, USA
death date	February 02, 2010
death place	Hockley, Texas
occupation	Writer
influenced	}}

Eustace Clarence Mullins, Jr. (March 9, 1923 – February 2, 2010) was a populist American political writer and antisemite. His most famous and influential work is ''The Secrets of The Federal Reserve'' described by congressman Wright Patman as 'a very fine book [which] has been very useful to me'. Along with Nesta Webster, he is generally regarded as one of the most influential authors in the genre of conspiracism.

Biography

Eustace Clarence Mullins, Jr. was born in Roanoke, Virginia, the third child of Eustace Clarence Mullins (1899–1961) and his wife Jane Katherine Muse (1897–1971). His father was a salesman in a retail clothing store.

Eustace Mullins was educated at Washington and Lee University, New York University, the University of North Dakota and the Institute of Contemporary Arts (Washington, D.C.)

In December 1942, at Charlottesville, Virginia he enlisted in the military as a Warrant Officer. He was also a veteran of the United States Air Force, with thirty-eight months active service during World War II.

Mullins frequently visited poet Ezra Pound during his period of incarceration in St. Elizabeths Hospital for the Mentally Ill in Washington, D.C. between 1946 and 1959. According to Mullins it was Pound who set him on the course of research that led to his writing ''The Secrets of The Federal Reserve''

Mullins was a researcher at the Library of Congress in 1950 and cooperated with Senator Joseph McCarthy in trying to discover who financed the Communist Party. He later stated that he believed McCarthy had "started to turn the tide against world communism". Shortly after his first book came out in 1952, he was discharged by the Library of Congress.

In the 1950s, Mullins wrote for Conde McGinley’s newspaper Common Sense, which promoted the second edition of his book on the Federal Reserve, entitled ''The Federal Reserve Conspiracy'' (1954). Around this time, he also wrote for Lyrl Clark Van Hyning's Chicago-based newsletter, ''Women's Voice''. In 1995, he was writing for ''Criminal Politics''. Around the end of his life, he would write for Willis Carto's magazine Barnes Review.

Mullins lived in Staunton, Virginia, in the house on Madison Place where he grew up, from the mid 1970s through the end of his life.

Writings

In his Foreword to ''The Secrets of the Federal Reserve'' Mullins explains the circumstances by which he came to write his now famous investigation into the origins of the Federal Reserve System:

::In 1949, while I was visiting Ezra Pound who was a political prisoner at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, Washington, D.C. (a Federal institution for the insane), Dr. Pound asked me if I had ever heard of the Federal Reserve System. I replied that I had not, as of the age of 25. He then showed me a ten dollar bill marked "Federal Reserve Note" and asked me if I would do some research at the Library of Congress on the Federal Reserve System which had issued this bill. Pound was unable to go to the Library himself, as he was being held without trial as a political prisoner by the United States government. After he was denied broadcasting time in the U.S., Dr. Pound broadcast from Italy in an effort to persuade people of the United States not to enter World War II. Franklin D. Roosevelt had personally ordered Pound’s indictment...

After telling Pound that he had little interest in such a research project because he was working on a novel, ::Pound offered to supplement my income by ten dollars a week for a few weeks. My initial research revealed evidence of an international banking group which had secretly planned the writing of the Federal Reserve Act and Congress’ enactment of the plan into law. These findings confirmed what Pound had long suspected. He said,"You must work on it as a detective story."

Mullins completed the manuscript during the course of 1950 when he began to seek a publisher. Eighteen publishers turned the book down without comment before the President of the Devin-Adair Publishing Company, Devin Garrett, told him, "I like your book but we can't print it...Neither can anybody else in New York. You may as well forget about getting the [...] book published."

Eventually the book was published by two of Pound's disciples, John Kasper and David Horton, under the title ''Mullins on the Federal Reserve''.

In ''Mullins on the Federal Reserve'' (1952), (the updated edition published in 1983 was called ''Secrets of the Federal Reserve'') Mullins argued that there was a conspiracy among Paul Warburg, Edward Mandell House, Woodrow Wilson, J.P. Morgan, Benjamin Strong, Otto Kahn, the Rockefeller family, the Rothschild family, and other European and American bankers which resulted in the founding of the U.S. Federal Reserve System. He argued that the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 defies Article 1, Section 8, Paragraph 5 of the United States Constitution by creating a "central bank of issue" for the United States. Mullins went on to claim that World War I, the Agricultural Depression of 1920, the Great Depression of 1929 were brought about by international banking interests in order to profit from conflict and economic instability. Mullins also cited Thomas Jefferson's staunch opposition to the establishment of a central bank in the United States.

In the 1983 edition of his book, he argued that Kuhn, Loeb & Co. and the House of Morgan were fronts for the Rothschilds. In this edition, he also outlined how financial interests connected to the J. Henry Schroder Company and the Dulles brothers financed Adolf Hitler (in contrast to the claims of his mentor, Ezra Pound, that Hitler was a sovereign who was completely against the interests of international finance ). He also alleged that the Rothschilds were world monopolists. He furthermore claimed that most of the stock of member banks that owned stock in the Federal Reserve was owned by City of London bankers, since they owned much of the stock of the member banks. He attempted to trace stock ownership, as it changed hands via mergers and acquisitions, from the inception of the Federal Reserve in 1913 to the early 1980s.

In the last chapter of the book, he noted various Congressional investigations, and criticized the immense degree of power that these few banks who owned majority shares in the Federal Reserve possessed. He also criticized the Bilderberg Group, attacking it as an international consortium produced by the Rockefeller-Rothschild alliance. In an appendix to the book, he delved further into the City of London, and criticized the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, which he claimed helps to conduct psychological warfare on the citizens of Britain and the United States.

A central theme of Mullins' book is that the Federal Reserve allows bankers to monetize debt, creating it out of nothing by book entry, and thus they have enormous leverage over everyone else. Near the end of the book, he said of the Federal Reserve:

Eustace Mullins dedicated ''Secrets of the Federal Reserve'' to George Stimpson and Ezra Pound.

Mullins wrote a follow up to his work on the Federal Reserve in 1985, in a book called ''The World Order: A Study in the Hegemony of Parasitism'', updated in 1992 as ''The World Order: Our Secret Rulers''. He argued that the Federal Reserve and other central banks were tools of a "Rothschild World system", centered in the City of London, which extended its power through organizations like the Royal Institute of International Affairs, various foundations, corporate conglomerates, intelligence agencies, etc. He proposed that Nations were not really governing powers, but rather, that the world was parasitically controlled by this interlock of banks, foundations, and corporations, which acted as a unified force, tending towards World monopoly. He furthermore proposed that this oligarchical apparatus was controlled by corrupt, dynastic families that had accumulated their wealth through trade in gold, slaves, and drugs. He claimed that as this consortium furthered its monopolistic ambitions, it would seek the establishment of a World Culture, eradicate nationalism, impoverish everyone except themselves, and progressively turn the world into a police state.

In 1985, Mullins also wrote ''A Writ for Martyrs'', in which he reproduced a large portion of his FBI file, which included a 1959 memo to J. Edgar Hoover from Alex Rosen, which suggested having Mullins forcibly committed for his political views. On this memo is a scribbled note from Hoover, saying the Mullins case was “top priority” and that FBI agents should “see that some action is taken.” It also produced facsimiles of his correspondence with the German and American governments regarding the burning of the German translation of his study of the Federal Reserve.

In 1988, Mullins wrote ''Murder by Injection'', where he argued that much of the United States was controlled by the Rockefellers, and that the "medical monopoly" exercised a pernicious influence on American life, intentionally making people sick and deliberately introducing poisons, rather than healing people.

In 1989, Mullins wrote ''The Rape of Justice'', where he argued that the United States legal system was fundamentally corrupt.

Antisemitism

Many of Mullins' writings show a preoccupation with the idea that the Jews of the world are in a state of war with Christianity and Western civilization, and that Communism, Zionism, and International finance were Jewish tools to subjugate gentile populations. He also believed that in general the interaction between Jews and gentiles was parasitic. He believed that gentiles like the Rockefellers were also parasitic, but that ultimately the World Order was controlled by Jews and that the end goal of this Jewish oligarchy is "World Zionism."

He believed that the French Revolution and the Congress of Vienna were key events in which Jews, via conspiratorial mechanations, overpowered Gentile governments. He believed that other key moments in the establishment of Jewish power were the creation of the Federal Reserve, the Bolshevik Revolution, and the establishment of the state of Israel.

Like Pound, he had sympathy for Fascism, because of its apparent anti-Usury and anti-Communist measures, though he later withdrew that sympathy, as he came to believe that without the Nazis, Zionism would never have been a powerful force, and that the Nazis were puppets of Jewish bankers, specifically Max Warburg, who he claimed financed them to build up the Nazi war machine, as well as the leaders of the J. Henry Schroeder Bank, who were facilitated by the Dulles brothers, and that Nazi opposition to these bankers, insofar as it went beyond rhetoric, occurred only well after they had ascended to power. In his book ''Secrets of the Federal Reserve'', he also claimed that World War One was contrived and managed by a triumvirate consisting of Paul Warburg, Bernard Baruch, Eugene Meyer, and to a lesser extent, the leaders of Morgan banks, in the United States, and men like Max Warburg in Germany, so that they might increase their profit and power. He also claimed that these individuals would play a key role in financing the Bolshevik Revolution.

His October, 1952 article "Adolf Hitler: An Appreciation" was mentioned in a report by the House Un-American Activities Committee In it, he espoused anti-Semitic views and expressed the belief that America owes a debt to Hitler.

In a tract called ''The Secret Holocaust'', Mullins stated that the account of the Nazi extermination of the Jews is implausible, and that it is a cover story for the Soviet massacres of Christians, which he believed was led by a conspiracy of "international Jews" and instigated for the purpose of killing Gentiles.

In 1968, Mullins authored the tract, ''The Biological Jew'', which he claimed was an "objective" analysis of the forces behind the "decline" of Western Culture. He claimed that the main influence that people were overlooking in their analysis of world affairs was "parasitism". He began by describing parasitism in the animal kingdom. He then commented on the work of the macro-historians Oswald Spengler and Arnold Toynbee (who he said was a ripoff of Spengler and a "shabbez-goi historian"), and proposed that if we look at society as if it were an organism, then the Jews would be equivalent to parasites overtaking that organism. He states that Jews "instinctively" want to control the world. He spent the rest of the book attacking Americans for their supposed docility, ranting about America's subservience to the Jews, and predicting that America would be in total cultural decline by the 1980s.

In some of his lectures, Mullins claimed that the Nazis were simply tools controlled by the leaders of "World Zionism", that without them, the Zionist movement would be very weak, and that Hitler, ostensibly against international bankers, was in reality under their control.

He somehow believed that he wasn't anti-Semitic, but that he was merely warning the world of a supposed Jewish "drive" towards World domination. He said in an interview before his death that "the Jewish people feel that they can be safe only if they control the entire world, because they have developed a mythology that no matter where a Jew goes, he's going to be killed by somebody". He also stated that "I have no reason to hate Jews .. they hate us because we stand in the way of their world power". He furthermore alleged that the leaders of "World Zionism" desired 3 world wars, that the first two had already occurred, but that by the end of the third, "the Jews would control the entire world". He claimed that Christians were being manipulated into fighting Muslims, and that Israelis desire to "exterminate the entire Arab-Muslim population".

In 1987, Mullins authored ''The Curse of Canaan: A Demonology of History'', in which he set forth the theory that behind the oligarchical system he described in his other writings was a Judeo-Masonic "Satanic" conspiracy founded in ancient Babylon, evidence of which he found in the Bible, Masonic texts, and Talmudic and Kabbalistic literature. Updating the claims of the conspiracist Nesta Webster, he asserted that the French Revolution was a culmination of years of intrigue by occult personages, and that it marked the beginning of a program of world revolution that would later manifest in the Bolshevik Revolution and the Soviet Communist regime. He proposed that the purpose of these revolutions was to kill Gentiles, who he referred to as the "real Semites", as opposed to the "cursed Cannanites". He claimed that for thousands of years, Gentiles had been the victims of "anti-Semitic persecution".

Death

While on a speaking tour in Columbus, Ohio in January 2010, Mullins suffered a stroke. He died on February 2, 2010, aged 86, in Hockley, Texas.

Works

Books

''The Curse of Canaan: A Demonology of History'', Revelation Books, Staunton, Virginia, 1987, 242 pages, ISBN 0978651715 (2007)

''The Federal Reserve Conspiracy'', Common Sense, Union, New Jersey, 1954, 144 pages

''Mullins' New History of the Jews'', The International Institute of Jewish Studies, Staunton, Virginia, 1978, reprint of 1968 edition. Quoting from the introduction: "... throughout the history of civilization, one particular problem of mankind has remained constant. In all of the vast records of peace and wars and rumors of wars, one great empire after another has had to come to grips with the same dilemma ... the Jews."

''Murder by Injection: The Medical Conspiracy Against America'', The National Council for Medical Research, Staunton, Virginia, ISBN 0-88060-694-0

''My Life in Christ'', Faith and Service Books, Aryan League of America Staunton, Virginia, 1968, 90 pages

''The Rape of Justice: America's Tribunals Exposed'', Staunton, Virginia: National Commission for Judicial Reform, 1989

''The Secret History of the Atomic Bomb''

''Secrets of the Federal Reserve'', 1952. Reprinted John McLaughlin, 1983, 208 pages, ISBN 0-9656492-1-0

''The Sedition Case'', Sons Of Liberty, 1985, Metairie, Louisiana, 1985, Trade Paperback

''This Difficult Individual Ezra Pound'', Fleet Publishing Corporation, (1961) reprint, Noontide Press, ISBN 0-317-53248-0

''This Difficult Individual: Ezra Pound'', Angriff Press: Hollywood, California, 1961. With black & white photos of Ezra Pound taken while incarcerated, 388 pages, cloth reprint (exactly as Fleet Press edition; bootlegged?)

''War! War! War!'', Sons of Liberty, 1984, ISBN 0-89562-100-2

''A Writ for Martyrs'', OTU Christ Church, 1985, Soft Cover, 223 pages

''The World Order: A Study the Hegemony of Parasitism'', Staunton, Virginia: Ezra Pound Institute, 1985, 217 pages

''The World Order: Our Secret Rulers'', Staunton, Virginia: Ezra Pound Institute, 1992, 294 pages

Pamphlets and other works

''27 Billion Dollar Rip Off; The Power Brokers''

''America's New Robber Barons: Exclusive Report'', pamphlet, 8 pages

''American Patriotism Means Loyalty to Israel, Says Jack'', pamphlet, reprint, 2 pages

''Boycott: The Jewish Weapon''

''Canada: A Financial Report For 1992''

''The Celebration Of Rosh Hashanah''

''The Coup That Never Was''

''Criminals On Capitol Hill''

''The Danger Of International Merger Mania''

''The Day Is Here''

''Death To The Peacemakers''

''Easter''

''Education For Death''

''Education for Slavery''

''Every Man A King''

''FDR''

''Federal Reserve Notes: Shackles Of Slavery''

''General MacArthur The Man Who Refused to Lose''

''Genocide In America''

''George Sylvester Viereck: Roosevelt's Victim'', pamphlet, 3 pages

''The Glorious Revolution'', corner-stapled report, 4 pages

''The Hidden Hand Behind Televangelism''

''The Holocaust Explained''

''How The Media Is Manipulated''

''How To Become A United States Senator''

''Is There A New World Order?''

''Jesse Jackson And The Jews'''', corner-stapled report, 7 pages

''Jewish TV: Sick, Sick, Sick''

''Jewish War Against The Western World''

''Judges or Criminals?'', pamphlet, 3 pages

''Khatyn Or Katyn?'', pamphlet, 2 pages

''The Lindbergh Murders: Hauptman Was Innocent''

''Marching through Georgia'', pamphlet

''Murder''

''Murder by Injection: The Great Swine Flu Massacre''

''Murder On The Supreme Court''

''New Israel''

''New Look at Herzl'', 2 pages, corner-stapled photocopied report. Reveals that Herzl's grandiose plans for Zionism resulted from VD.

''The New World Order''

''None Dare Call Him Traitor: Larry Abraham The Israeli Connect'', pamphlet, 8 pages

''Operation Desert Shield'', corner-stapled report, 4 pages

''Our Identity''

''The Plagues Of Pharaoh''

''The Power Brokers Of Canada'

''Reagan's Final Surrender'', corner-stapled report, 2 pages

''The Scandal Unveiled''

''The Secret Holocaust'', CPA Book Publishers, Boring, Oregon, small 34-page pamphlet

''Sigmund Freud: Anti-Christ Devil''

''Supreme Court Burns Us Again''

''The Trilaterals Are Back In The White House''

''The Vietnam Wall''

''The War Against Christianity''

''There's A Gulag In Your Future''

''Trotsky: Where Are You Now?''

''The War Against Vietnam Veterans''

''War Is The Only Way Out''

''The Warburgs, An American Success Story'', corner-stapled catalog, 7 pages.

''Warning: The Department Of Justice Is Dangerous To Americans''

''Washington DC: City Of Fear''

''What Are We Fighting To Preserve?''

''What Made Sammy Run?: How Racial Hatred Creates Billion Dollar Fortunes'', pamphlet, 10 pages

''Who Owns the TV Networks ?''

''Why General Patton was Murdered'', pamphlet, 4 pages

''You Can Stop the Threatened Depression!'', leaflet, USA: Liberty Free Press, USA

Resources

1900–1930 U.S. Federal Census

World War I Draft Registration Card of Eustace Mullins, Jr.'s father

World War II Military Enlistment Index

References

External links

Eustace Mullins Memorial at Find A Grave

Category:1923 births Category:2010 deaths Category:People from Roanoke, Virginia Category:American pamphlet writers Category:Antisemitism Category:Blood libel Category:Conspiracy theorists Category:Deaths from stroke Category:People from Harris County, Texas Category:Writers from Texas Category:Writers from Virginia Category:University of North Dakota alumni Category:Washington and Lee University alumni Category:People from Staunton, Virginia

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