Myth
The central bank of the U.S., the Federal Reserve Bank, is part of and owned by the U.S. government and its people
Fact
"The Federal Reserve Bank is a private company, authorized in 1913 by a Congressional Act called the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. In a very real sense, it outsourced the control of U.S. money and banking to bankers themselves. Some of its large (officially) non-voting stockholders as of 2006 are:
Citibank
Bank of America
UBS Warburg
JP Morgan/Chase
Wells Fargo
In order for any U.S. bank to belong to the Federal Reserve System, it must put up 6% of its capital stock (per the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 itself - Section 2, paragraph 3), so basically and in a broad sense the Fed is owned by its member banks. In our opinion, that is called a cartel. For balance, here is the Federal Reserve's position.
Political opinions follow:
James Madison in 1808 said "History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible, to maintain their control over governments, by controlling money and its issuance."
Thomas Jefferson, another one of the founding fathers of the U.S., had this to say about private central banks: ""I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." and "The issuing power (of money) should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs/"
More data and specifics are available here. We do not agree with all of its facts or conclusions, but do believe that its more correct than not and think its deserves a link.
Do your own research and make up your own mind, as usual. If you think we're conspiracy nuts, that's fine too.
One last note in the false data area - there is a list floating around the internet listing the supposed owners of the Fed that is quite incorrect. As examples, it includes a totally false bank called the "Israel Moses Sieff" bank, "Kuhn Loeb" which hasn't existed for many years and "Goldman Sachs" which is an investment bank (only commercial banks can currently be Fed members. Goldman Sachs is, however, a primary dealer of the Fed per this list).
The whole idea of this entry is to point out that the Federal Reserve is not part of the US Government but rather a privately owned cartel with motives and purposes that do not exactly always match up with the best actions for the country as a whole on a long term basis."
source:
http://www.nowandfutures.com/false_data.html
(click on source to get links which aren't active in the cut-n-paste. For example
http://www.federalreserve.gov/faq.htm)