Fed not part of gov't

Brad De Long delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU
Thu Feb 11 19:48:02 PST 1999



>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

If it's private, then why does it pay 90%+ of its interest income back to the Treasury?

Brad DeLong



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