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HISTORY OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM
The Federal Reserve System (also known as the Federal Reserve, and informally as the Fed) is the central banking system of the United States. It was created in 1913 with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, and was largely a response to a series of financial panics, particularly a severe panic in 1907. Over time, the roles and responsibilities of the Federal Reserve System have expanded and its structure has evolved. Events such as the Great Depression were major factors leading to changes in the system.[5] Its duties today, according to official Federal Reserve documentation, are to conduct the nation's monetary policy, supervise and regulate banking institutions, maintain the stability of the financial system and provide financial services to depository institutions, the U.S. government, and foreign official institutions.
The Federal Reserve System's structure is composed of the presidentially appointed Board of Governors (or Federal Reserve Board), the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks located in major cities throughout the nation, numerous other private U.S. member banks and various advisory councils. This division of responsibilities of the central bank falls into several separate and independent parts, some private and some public. The result is a structure that is considered unique among central banks. It is also unusual in that an entity (the U.S. Department of the Treasury) outside of the central bank creates the currency used.
According to the board of governors of the Federal Reserve, "It is not 'owned' by anyone and is 'not a private, profit-making institution'. Instead, it is an independent entity within the government, having both public purposes and private aspects." The U.S. Government does not own shares in the Federal Reserve System or any of its component banks, but the Government does receive all of the system's annual profits after a statutory dividend of 6% on member banks' capital investment is paid and an account surplus is maintained. The government also exercises some control over the Federal Reserve by appointing and setting the salaries of the system's highest-level employees. The Federal Reserve transferred a record amount of $45 billion to the U.S. Treasury in 2009.
Purpose
The primary motivation for creating the Federal Reserve System was to address banking panics. Other purposes are stated in the Federal Reserve Act, such as "to furnish an elastic currency, to afford means of rediscounting commercial Read more...

"It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you to the heart: the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you". Mark Twain (1835-1910)
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Jamie Campany: a gold scammer

Confessions of a Gold Scammer
By AVNI PATEL | Good Morning America – 27 October 2011
A federal judge next month will sentence the man who authorities say took advantage of the booming gold market, by scamming more than 1,400 people out of tens of millions of dollars.
But before he goes to prison, the mastermind of the scheme, Jamie Campany, sat down with ABC News' Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross to reveal how he tricked his hundreds of victims out of nearly $30 million.
The most promising victims of the gold scam, Campany said, were spotted through Google earth satellite images. Campany and his team matched phone leads to addresses to find victims with the biggest homes, and therefore the most money to invest in gold and silver.
But in reality, there was no gold despite the legitimate-looking transaction papers from the Global Bullion Exchange -- a company that Campany said was "completely bogus."
The Global Bullion Exchange was an invention of Campany's, who took ABC News back to the now-empty telephone boiler room in Florida where his telemarketers worked their victims, mostly upper middle class business people who Campany said let their egos get the best of them.
"Quite frankly, little old ladies are a lot more astute and a lot more skeptical about making investments with people they don't know," he said.
The pitch worked off the falling stock market and the rising price of gold as Campany recalled his lines for ABC News.
"Come on. Everybody knows what's going on in the markets today. Are you living in a cave?" he would say.
There was an answer for everything -- even if victim's protested by saying they didn't have any money.
"Sure you do," Campany or one of his telemarketers would say. "You've got a 401k, you have a stock portfolio... You have dead dogs that are not performing."
Dave Blomberg of Hialeah, Fla., said he was caught up in the scam after he received those calls.
"I did end up giving them a considerable amount of money, cause I thought if I invested more, I would get the money back," Blomberg said.
He never will, losing $75,000, and nor will the other investors. By the time the scheme collapsed and this place was shut down, all the money was long gone.
"I think about it every day. These people have to live with the pain that I caused them," Campany said. "It's going to hurt them for the rest of their lives. Hopefully this is one way I can stop it from happening to anybody else."
Campany faces up to 25 years in prison and told ABC News he's hoping his public confession will show the judge that he's truly sorry for his crimes.