The board is is nominated for 14 year terms, and they are just nominations. The sitting board is not subject to the will of any branch of the US federal government in any official capacity, and they don't have to accept the president's nominations. They don't have to worry about political backlash once appointed because they *will* out last the president that nominated them. Also, no sitting president can ever get the chance to nominate a majority of the board. The idea that the board of the Federal Reserve is subject to political control is a convient fiction. I said that it's more like the other way around because the power to regulate the national currency is the power to destroy same, and that power is far greater than any of the branches of the federal government. The only real power that the government has to check this is the power to revoke the charter of the Federal Reserve, and remove it's monopoly control of the currency.
No, I am not saying that the Board of Governors does a good job or anything similar.
I didn't say anything about the quality of work of the board. Nor did I take any such claim from any other post.
I am just saying that the Board of Governors, the one who takes the decisions in the Fed, is a federal government agency.
No, it is not. The Federal Reserve Bank is a privately founded bank with monopoly powers by virtue of a government charter. This is comparable to the federal government hiring a private merc army for operations overseas a la Blackwater. Government is the customer, and has sway, but does not make the executive decisions and was never designed to be able to influence those executive decisions to any large degree.
Supposedly, the system is the way you describe it so the members are independent. I dont believe that for a moment, but it is the justification. Having a independent or honest politician or bureaucrat with that level of power is an utopia, a lie. But the decisions about monetary policy are already taken by a federal government agency. That is what I wanted to say, not that it worked. If I could I would abolish the Fed, and put an end to the money monopoly.
I think we agree upon the net effects and usefulness of the Fed, and only disagree upon which end is the tail and which is the dog. Who controls whom is really a matter of degree. In reality, neither is independent and neither is in command in any absolute sense.
This, of course, would destroy the currency in short order, but it would also destroy a large number of the legistlators' own personal fortunes. So there is a strong incentive to not choose this 'nuclear option'.
I think that the real reason politicians support the central bank is because the central bank finances government and allows politicians to spend more than they could by direct taxation only.
Um, yes. That's what I said. How else do you think that a politician builds and maintains a personal fortune except by "taxation"? (institutionalized theft)