Quote from jprad:
It would help if you had your facts correct first.
From the web site of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond :
Membership Application
Any state-chartered bank may become a member of the Federal Reserve System. The 12 regional Reserve Banks supervise state member banks as part of the Federal Reserve Systemâs mandate to assure strength and stability in the nationâs domestic markets and banking system. Reserve Bank supervision is carried out in partnership with the state regulator, assuring a consistent and unified regulatory environment.
Each state member bank must subscribe to capital stock in the Federal Reserve Bank of its district in an amount equal to six percent of its combined capital and surplus (but excluding retained earnings); three percent must be paid in and the remaining three percent is on call. The paid in portion currently earns an annual dividend of six percent.
http://www.richmondfed.org/banking/federal_reserve_membership/
No shit. The government gets money at very low interest since most of the interest they pay to the Fed every year is returned to the Treasury at the end of the year.
In return, the banks got a fractional reserve scheme for lending/making a profit.
It's mutually beneficial to each other and marginally beneficial to the public who gets more credit than would otherwise be available.
Is it perfect? Hell no.
But, it was arguably a more stable system than the two previous attempts.
so how was I wrong?