The Federal Reserve System (also the Federal Reserve; informally The Fed) is the central banking system of the United States. Created in 1913 by the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, it is a quasi-public (government entity with private components) banking system[1] composed of (1) the presidentially appointed Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington, D.C.; (2) the Federal Open Market Committee; (3) twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks located in major cities throughout the nation acting as fiscal agents for the U.S. Treasury, each with its own nine-member board of directors; (4) numerous private U.S. member banks, which subscribe to required amounts of non-transferable stock in their regional Federal Reserve Banks; and (5) various advisory councils. As of February 2006, Ben Bernanke serves as the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

Bernanke spent his undergraduate years at Harvard University and graduated with a B.A. in economics in 1975. Throughout college, he worked as a waiter to support himself during the summer at South of the Border, a roadside attraction in his hometown of Dillon.[7] He received a PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1979. His thesis was named "Long-term commitments, dynamic optimization, and the business cycle" and his thesis adviser was Stanley Fischer.[8]

The Federal Reserve System is the third central banking system in the United States' history. The First Bank of the United States (1791-1811) and the Second Bank of the United States (1816-1836) each had 20-year charters, and both issued currency, made commercial loans, accepted deposits, purchased securities, had multiple branches, and acted as fiscal agents for the U.S. Treasury.[1] In both banks the Federal Government was required to purchase 20% of the bank's capital stock and appoint 20% of the directors. Thus majority control was in the hands of private investors who purchased the rest of the stock. The banks were opposed by state-chartered banks, who saw them as very large competitors, and by many who understood them to be banking cartels which compelled to them servitude of the common man. President Andrew Jackson vetoed legislation to renew the Second Bank of the United States, starting a period of free banking. Jackson staked his second term on the issue of central banking stating, "Every monopoly and all exclusive privileges are granted at the expense of the public, which ought to receive a fair equivalent. The many millions which this act proposes to bestow on the stockholders of the existing bank must come directly or indirectly out of the earnings of the American people."[2] In 1863, as a means to help finance the Civil War, a system of national banks was instituted by the National Currency Act. The banks each had the power to issue standardized national bank notes based on United States bonds held by the bank. The Act was totally revised in 1864 and later named as the National-Bank Act, or National Banking Act, as it is popularly known. The administration of the new national banking system was vested in the newly created Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and its chief administrator, the Comptroller of the Currency. The Office, which still exists today, examines and supervises all banks chartered nationally and is a part of the U.S. Treasury Department.

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Links:
End The Fed
Video: Zeitgeist: Part 1 of 5
Video: Fiat Empire
Video: The Monopoly Men  
Ezra Pound–critic of the Federal reserve, tried with treason by the United States
G. Edward Griffin–wrote The Creature from Jekyll Island
video: money banking and the federal reserve
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