You left out some of the best parts. >However, owning Reserve Bank stock is quite different from owning stock in a private company. The Reserve Banks are not o

You left out some of the best parts. >However, owning Reserve Bank stock is quite different from owning stock in a private company. The Reserve Banks are not operated for profit, and ownership of a certain amount of stock is, by law, a condition of membership in the System. The stock may not be sold, traded, or pledged as security for a loan; dividends are, by law, paid to member banks at a maximum rate of 6 percent, determined in part by each member bank's total assets. The bank is operated "not for profit", but generates $9x billion in "profit" for the Treasury (as claimed multiple times in this thread). "Ownership" is a moot red herring. Owning a fictional entity is useless; having claims on its cash flows is not. The Federal Reserve System issues stock to commercial banks and pays an annual dividend to them, before any money goes to the Treasury. It is literally all of the upside with none of the downside (e.g. liability). The investment pays for itself in twelve years and then continues to pay in perpetuity.