Consider this fantastic summary of “The Fed as Giant Counterfeiter” by Robert Murphy:
Ah, but we’re not done yet. Not only does the Fed’s accumulation of Treasury debt artificially push down the interest rate, but the Fed gives the interest payments right back to the Treasury! After all, interest is how the Fed “makes money.” It writes checks on itself (created out of thin air) and accumulates assets, and then earns the interest and (in some cases) capital gains on the assets. But after the Fed pays its employees, pays its electric bill, and throws the staff Christmas party, it remits the excess earnings back to the Treasury….
…Sorry, but our own monetary system has the same feature. When the Treasury securities held by the Fed mature — so that the Treasury has to pay back the face value in principal — the Fed rolls over the debt. Over time, the nominal market value of the Fed’s holdings of Treasury debt continually grows. Barring a sudden reversal in this policy, the Treasury knows that it will never have to pay off this debt. For all practical purposes, any Treasury debt ultimately finding its way onto the Fed’s balance sheet is economically equivalent to our monarch running the printing press to pay his bills.
Related to this, consider Thomas Jefferson’s warning to America concerning private issuance:
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.
