"By law, the 12 regional banks that actually run the system, owned by JP Morgan, Citi, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, the very banks the Fed is supposed to regulate, those banks are the legal shareholders of the regional Federal Reserve banks. Required by law to buy stock, pay the dividend on it up to 6% a year off the Fed's earnings."

… e also 12 regional Federal Reserve banks, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and so on. And those 12 regional banks, the ones that actually do all the work, that handle the money, that run the plumbing of the entire financial system, those 12 banks are not government entities. They are private corporations, and they are owned by their member banks. By law, the 12 regional banks that actually run the system, owned by JP Morgan, Citi, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, the very banks the Fed is supposed to regulate, those banks are the legal shareholders of the regional Federal Reserve banks. Required by law to buy stock, pay the dividend on it up to 6% a year off the Fed's earnings. Listen to that again. The banks that the Federal Reserve regulates are the legal shareholders of the Federal Reserve, and they collect a statutory dividend every year from the institution that's supposed to be policing them. Imagine if Pfizer and Merck owned shares in the FDA and got paid an annual dividend by law out of the regulators' earnings. …