> The U.S. central banking system ranks among the finest of its kind.

I agree...

> Central banking is possibly the greatest human invention since sanitation.

This is a most deceptive and inherently political statement. Sanitation is a great invention for everyone. Central banking not so much.

Central banking and centralised control of the money supply serve to concentrate the greatest opportunity for skimming the surplus generated by vast productive populations into the hands a very few people to direct as they wish. Whether this process is controlled democratically or not (and in the US it most certainly is not) is not the point.

The way this is done in the US is no different in principle to the way it is done by elite in more obviously "corrupt" countries. In the US, it is more sophisticated and over the last century it has attained the patina of established respectability. In the US they have managed to set this system up without killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. (the surplus-producing population)

The skimming in the US is accomplished first through powerful central taxation which requires centralised record keeping and control of the banking sector. Secondly wealth and accumulated surplus is skimmed (redistributed upwards) through the control of credit extended by banks to generally expand and potentially to "contract" the money (credit) supply. Inflation generally rewards large debtors and punishes savers.

Skimming is also accomplished by helping to grow and trade in government debt (granting incredibly valuable concessions to favoured dealers), assisting in managing capital flows into and out of the country, extending vast credits to powerful interest groups (mostly bankers) thereby helping powerful private borrowers to lean on the public credit for private gain, and most importantly and tragically to make possible and in fact encourage wars of choice which are clearly to the benefit of private interests and clearly not of any benefit to the general public. Is it any wonder that the Fed was created by bankers and war financiers, for the benefit of bankers and war financiers? This goes back to Morgan and others and their intimate involvement in the financing of Britain and France and subsequent agitation for American entry into WWI.

Central banking is most convenient and necessary for anyone wishing to control or direct economic activity and hence the lives of others. That is why it appeals to statists of all persuasions who perceive it as powerful lever or tool they hope employ in their fantasies of control. Prominent early communists saw state-controlled central banking as an essential step for converting a capitalist system to a communist one. That is also why most "crazy libertarians" find their way to a stance opposing central banking. Central banking is anathema to Liberty. Jefferson killed the first Bank of the United States and exposed it as an agent of foreign interests. (The capital for the first bank was created by an early scam which had people talk down the debts of the continental congress and buy up the IOUs from the poor soldiers who fought for the revolution for a few pennies on the dollar, and then lobby successfully for the debts to be assumed and honored at face value by the new constitutional government. This was a similar scam to the way the oligarchs in Russia convinced newly enriched peasants to sell their shares in state assets for cheap.) Jackson killed the Second Bank of the United States for much the same reasons as Jefferson had a generation before. Seventy years later, a true, well documented conspiracy of financiers, gave the US its third central bank.

I agree with other posters, that one must look at the actions and histories of many different central banks in different countries to understand the nature of the beast. The US is only the most competent in obfuscating its nature, purpose and origin. It has "won" at the central banking game for almost 100 years. Your praise of the US's central bank comes at the zenith of its power. I suspect over the next 10 years, it will resemble its cousins in less competent regimes and juridictions more and more.

The US central bank, aka the Fed, is a brilliant creation. It is a brilliant creation of the fevered minds of oligarchs to defend and advance their oligarchy. It has lasted 100 years. I hope it will not last another 100. With Idiocracy increasingly fast upon us, the prospects for change are not good. Bitcoin to the moon.