Federal Reserve is owned by major banks of Wall Street: Journalist

America’s Federal Reserve System is a private bank owned by the major banks of Wall Street, according to Stephen Lendman, a Chicago-based author and radio host.

After the stock tanked yet again on Monday, US President Donald Trump compared America’s central banking system, known as the Federal Reserve or the Fed, to a blundering golfer .

"The only problem our economy has is the Fed," Trump tweeted. "The Fed is like a powerful golfer who can't score because he has no touch - he can't putt!"

“Most people will be very surprised to learn that the Federal Reserve, America’s central bank, is neither federal nor does it has reserves,” Lendman told Press TV on Saturday.

“It’s a privately owned bank. It’s owned by the major banks of Wall Street. The big ones: City Groups, the Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Wells Fargo. The heads of these companies own the Fed,” he added.

“It’s like owning a corporation with shares and  stocks. And I believe the percentage of each of these banks own of the Fed relates to their size to their revenue, probably the revenues not their profits,” the analyst noted.

“It has been a long time since I have addressed this specific subject.  And I have addressed this in a lot of my writings in the past, some years ago,” he said.  

“Presidents have nothing to say about who would be the Fed chairman or who would be the governors of the Fed. The president announces the governors, a total of 12 I believe. He announces the chairman but he does not appoint them. The illusion exists that the president does those things, but he does not. He simply names the people. The Wall Street chooses to have these positions,” the commentator said.

“It’s very confusing for the ordinary people, because the Federal Reserve Bank is in Washington and it has the name Federal. But again it has nothing to do with anything federal,” he explained.

The liquidation of America’s fourth-largest investment bank, Lehman Brothers, in September 2008 almost brought down the global financial system. The collapse triggered an international economic crisis, which is considered by many economists as the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The crisis played a significant role in a downturn in global economic activity that led to the 2008–2012 global recession and contributed to the ongoing European sovereign-debt crisis.

The effects of the 2008 financial crisis are still being felt in the United States and across the world.

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