Fed not part of gov't

[Doug Henwood]

There are many details that suggest that the Federal Reserve isn't really
part of the U.S. government. There's the fact that the USG sold the land
for the Fed's headquarters to the Fed back in the 1930s. Then there's the
fact that the New York Fed is listed in the white pages, not the blue
government pages, in the Manhattan phone book. Then there's the .org suffix
the regional Fed banks use for their websites, rather than .gov. And now,
in looking at the federal budget accounts, I'm seeing that the Fed is
classified as part of the "public," rather than the government, when the
holders of U.S. government debt are broken out. No wonder Alan Greenspan
can't understand himself!

Doug