The Federal Reserve's Mission

Most Americans have very little understanding of the Federal Reserve. At most, some may know that a guy (Ben Bernanke) who looks a little like Lenin controls US interest rates.

But there is a lot more to the Federal Reserve. It is also the creator of US money and the prime decider of who gets bailout money.

Thanks to independent (some say socialist) Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, we got to see what the Fed is up to. He insisted on learning where the Fed's bailout money went. How un-American!

It turns out that tens of billions of dollars went to firms in the US that pretended they needed no help.

Goldman Sachs, for example. Goldman went to the Federal Reserve 212 times between March 2008 and March 2009, according to Fed documents. The company collected nearly $600 billion!

Citigroup...Morgan Stanley...General Electric. They were all in on the Fed's gravy train.

In total, the Federal Reserve put out $3.3 trillion worth of credit, buying up speculators' bad bets.

Not surprisingly, the price of bad credits rose in price due to the Fed's buying spree. So the Federal Reserve can now say that it hasn't lost a penny.

That Ben Bernanke sure has a sense of humor! The Fed neglects to mention that it can never sell all of this bad debt which would collapse in price.

Naive people think that the Fed is supposed to pursue corrupt operators. But now the Fed is at the center of the racket, handing out money to its powerful Wall Street cronies.

But this should come as no surprise. Most people don't know - the Federal Reserve is a private bank, even though it serves what is supposedly a public interest.

But it is neither owned or controlled by the federal government. The Fed is controlled by the banking industry, which are its main shareholders.

The Federal Reserve's stated mission is to give the US a trustworthy currency and to promote full employment. There's that sense of humor again...since its inception in 1913, the US Dollar has lost about 95% of its value.

The Fed's real mission is to make sure the banks stay in business and make a profit. It does this simply by transferring money to the banks.

How does it get the money? It just prints it up! Who pays the bill? Eventually, taxpayers and citizens do when the newly printed money reduces the value of their old money.

Oh, to be a banker in the United States instead of a common peon.....