How “Profitable” is the Fed?

I wrote something fun/interesting about the Federal Reserve for the non-finance audience at The Daily Beast. Lots of civilians are interested in the Fed owing to Janet Yellen’s TIME cover this week, btw.

The Federal Reserve is the most powerful and influential financial institution in the world and it is also one hell of a business.

The Fed, like Newt Gingrich, was hatched in secret one hundred years ago, on a small island off the coast of Georgia.  It was created to bring order to a chaotic banking system in the wake of a string of financial crises around the turn of the century. What’s gotten the mainstream media buzzing about the bank of late is the fact that, for the first time in it’s century-long history, a woman will be running the show. As many have pointed out, incoming chairperson Janet Yellen may in fact become the most powerful woman in the world upon her ascension on February 1st.

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