The Fed isn't a private institution.
The Federal Reserve is a classical example of a fascist institution, i.e. the merger of private and governmental power structures. The Fed is neither a private nor a public institution, but a hybrid of both.
I'm pretty sure the dipshit wasn't calling the Fed a cartel, but our banking system.
I didn't read it that way.
It's pretty much the other way around. The Treasury floats the bonds that provide the capital the Fed operates on. The Fed cannot expand the money supply without Treasury Securities to back it.
Given that T-Bills are the basis of currency, that would be expected. My memory was that the Fed retained 3-4% of interest, not 10%.
The Fed could, I guess, be said to control the amount of FRNs, because they can order more to be printed, but they don't control the money supply.
Only about 10% of M2 is in hard currency. We live in an electronic age. Printing money isn't the major issue. But the Fed absolutely controls the money supply, expanding and contracting in reaction to the business cycle and the goals of the Treasury.
Except for overnight rates, they don't control interest rates either.
Of course they do. The Fed rate controls interest rates just as surely as the price of Crude Oil controls the price at the pump. Neither is directly set, but both are undeniably controlled.