Central Bank Dreams, Monetary Realities

The legislative creators of the Fed would be surprised to discover that the Fed today is one of the biggest owners of real estate loans, with more than $900 billion of mortgage-backed securities on its books.

There was a time when there was no Federal Reserve.
Before the Fed, there was the National Banking Era of 1863–1914, for which the key legislation was the National Banking Act, originally called the National Currency Acts of 1863 and 1864, during the Lincoln administration. Exactly like the foundation of the Bank of England in 1694, which was created to finance King William III’s wars, a central purpose of the National Currency Acts was to finance the Civil War. In both cases, banks were given the power to issue paper currency in exchange for lending the government money.

Read more: http://www.american.com/archive/2013/january/central-bank-dreams-monetary-realities