Gary,
If it weren’t for the fact that the issue we’re discussing is “who creates and issues the money of this nation?”, a meander through the CB- Treasury relationship might be relevant to something. Does what you wrote either confirm or deny anything having to do whether the government or the private banks is the monopoly issuer of the currency? If so, then let’s discuss that.

MMT emphasizes the government being the monopoly issuer of the currency, as in the government IS today creating and issuing the nation’s money, via keystrokes, when it spends..
The truth is the private bankers are creating and issuing the nation’s money, and the role of The Federal Reserve in that process is certainly enabling and supporting as you say, because the Fed is what the private banking system is all about.

The actual very first thing we should do is to come to an understanding of what "The Fed" really is. The only "Fed" that exists under the Act is the Federal Reserve Banking System. It is a “banking system". The system must, and does, includes the 2000 plus Member-banks that actually DO the banking, lending our money as a debt and making their profits thereon, otherwise there is no ‘banking system’.

When discussing the ‘money system’ and we say "The Fed", we must include the Member banks. Otherwise people might come to the wrong idea of who it is we are all talking about.
There is no 'Federal Reserve' Corporation, but EACH Federal Reserve Regional bank is a privately controlled stock-issuing BankCorporation, with all rights and appurtenances thereto. The first order of organization and governance of the system is private in nature. As are all other groupings that follow.

There is a Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Banking System, and there are other official bodies and actors, including the FOMC Each of those exercises policy-setting control over the system. Each Regional Federal Reserve Bank President holds a position as Federal Reserve Agent. custodian for the currency notes created under order of the Board of Governors. Until those FR notes achieve circulation by the Member banks, and thus 'currency' in the legal money-world, they are 'paper' in the control of the agent on behalf of the BoG.
Summarizing, on organization. "The Fed" is legally nothing more or less than the Federal Reserve Banking System, as described above, and it is unsavory to infer any other meaning without a full explanation of how and why any other meaning comes into use.
In other words, Gary, there is no such thing as ‘the Fed’ that does not include the Member banks.

Much ‘public’ity is made of the fact that the Fed returns its net profits to the Treasury, AS IF they came from anyone else but the Treasury, and the taxpayers. Prior to QE, the Fed's revenues were from holding Treasuries as reserves for the Member banks, enabling the banks to make their profits by renting the money system to the people that own it.
While QE, LSAP and other Programs have recently introduced other gains to the Fed, they also carry the possibility of losses that would eventually be made up by the taxpayers.

Regard the ‘remittances’ were it not for the major efforts of former Chair of the Banking and Currency Committee Wright Patman, the Fed would have continued to use these gains as a nest egg against losses in the banking system. But Patman insisted, by a threat of ‘taxing’ legislation, such that the BoG's adopted a Board Policy of remittance, thereby blocking any legislative requirement for same. Such can be changed again by Fed Board Policy.

So, don't make a big deal out of the fact that the taxpayers get back some of the interest paid on public debt that , held by the Fed on behalf of its member banks. Certainly the Fed bankers did nothing to ‘earn’ that income.
It is an arcane and archaic tradition that should end completely, through the eventual elimination of public debt.
The statement that this makes "The Fed" like a non-profit corporation is both fantasy and a fallacy, as the Federal Reserve Banking System's PROFITS are gained by the Member banks in renting the money system to the people who own it. Please sum up the profits of those Member BankCorporations when considering the ‘non-profit’ nature of the Fed.

Your explanation of the logic on why the Fed borrows money from the private banks falls on deaf ears here, I admit.. I am one who champions the works of Congr. Wright Patman (14 years as Chair of the Banking and Currency Committee) for this statement:
"I have never yet had anyone who could, through the use of logic and reason, justify the Federal Government borrowing the use of its own money....I believe the time will come when people will demand that this be changed. I believe the time will come in this country when they will actually blame you and me and evejavascript:%20hideMsgBox();ryone else connected with the Congress for sitting idly by and permitting such an idiotic system to continue.”

For some reason, not so idiotic for MMT.

Randy,
Thanks a lot.

I read last years’ version but have not opened the recent update.
My comment has nothing to do with actions of the federal reserve board nor the correctness of fed policies.
So, how it is governed and how independent its policy setting are matters of little to no consequence.

I tried to be clear that it’s all about who creates and issues the money.
Either the government does when it spends, as MMT claims by keystroking, and as the basic demand of reformers, or the private banks create the money by issuing debt-contracts on which they collect rent in perpetuity.

The reason that this is important is because there is agreement on what needs to happen in order to make socio-economic progress as envisioned by MMT. What needs to happen is the government needs to be creating money when it spends. We agree.

But MMT says this is not a reform that needs to happen because government is creating the nation’s money now. And, if it is happening now, then there is no need to change or reform anything to make that future happen. The Money Status Quo is good enough.

So, the whole issue boils down to WHETHER, today, the government of the United States, acting purposely with regard to its responsibility to create the nation’s money, DOES, in fact, create and issue this nation’s money by spending it into existence? Or, does it NOT?

Regardless of any answer, this is a fundamental issue that must be recognized and, hopefully, resolved in order for any progressive hopes for public purpose money to succeed.

“” the difference is that the household is not a sovereign government and it doesn’t issue its own currency.””
This is certainly foundational, meaning that if it crumbles, all built thereon also crumbles.
Not the Post-Keynesian economics stuff, and not the jobs(income) guarantee stuff.
That is all well and good. Randy and all have excelled there.
It’s all the ‘money system’ stuff that’s wrong, and lead to the valid criticism of MMT.
.
The problem with the quoted statement is that when it comes to OUR national money and currency system, OUR government does not issue its own currency, or money, at all(c.e.).
Our government is just another ‘user’ of the bankers’ money system.
The ONLY difference between the government and household, as far as any money power goes, is that the government is sovereign, and being sovereign, CAN have the power to issue the nation’s money.
And I use the word ‘money’ purposely because when comparing the household’s budget-balancing power, it is money income-and-expenses that we are discussing.
Money is that which must have the power through it’s nationality to represent purchasing power in the unit of account.
And Money must, within the national economy of its issuer, serve as the universal means of exchange for goods and services. Money is national economic means of exchange and purchasing power.
The sovereign government of the United States has zero power today to be the issuer of its currency(c.e.) because in 1913 our government adopted the bankers’ school edition of money as a debt-contract.
And thus OUR government gave up its monopoly power of money issuance to the private bankers, for the private banks to issue asset-backed bank credits, secured through debt-contracts.
That’s the national money story today.
But, as contained in that germane truth, the government CAN be the monopoly issuer of the currency, but rather than promoting a real public-money alternative, MMT has embraced and promotes the bankers’ school system of debt-contract money, the capital-markets based money system of the private bankers………. From whom I can only imagine they hope to procure a ‘public-purposed money’ operation.
MMT does so partly by shoehorning the legal structure and institutional reality of the federal reserve banking system so that ‘the fed’…..the one whose system-Members issue all the money, through banking, and collect interest thereon in perpetuity…….is somehow part of the government.
It’s not nit-picking.
It is basic and elementary modern political monetary-economics.
For the Money System Common.

Let us all be thankful that Mr. Stein's objections are only to Ron Paul's foreign policy stance as a libertarian, and not his monetary policy beliefs.

Of course I agree with everything you wrote, but I was unaware of the Irving Fisher Committee's work last November. Your mention of Soddy and Fisher shows the basis of your own philosophy about the need for reform.
Given the political nature of this evolving movement, I want to mention early on that Fisher's 100 percent reserve plan was widely endorsed by noted conservative economist Milton Friedman. I like to throw Friedman out here early because usually nothing gets the progressive wing grabbing for their keyboards like the mention of his name.
But my Dad taught me a long time ago that when it came to money, Friedman was among the more progressive economists of the time, supporting a very progressive income tax as well.
It may seem a little incongruous among monetary reformists that Friedman was one of the biggest supporters of Fisher's proposal to end fractional reserve banking, and, of course, Fisher in turn endorsed the Chicago Plan of Henry Simons and others at the then-progressive Chicago School.
I couldn't be happier about A New Way Forward.
God speed. And ood luck.
Check out Major Hugh Douglas.
On April 8th in Montpelier Vermont I am giving a talk about the Debt-crisis and the need for monetary reform.
There's something about money in the air.

The endgame of the credit crisis will either be a monetary revolution, peaceful, by the pen, with the power to CREATE the nation's money taken from the private federal reserve bankers and restored to the people, acting through their government, as according to the Chicago Plan for Monetary Reform that was presented to FDR in 1933, or, it will end with another whimper after a few marches down to Wall Street.
It's your revolution.
Challenge me here.