[metal clanking] - I'm economist Austen Goolsbee, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
Let's answer your questions from the internet.
This is "Tech Support: U.S. Economy." [upbeat music] @TheKhrisPringle asks, "Shower thought, how much money is in the Chicago fed vault?
Asking for a friend, maybe myself." In the Chicago vault, in the many tens of billions at this moment, they'll probably get mad at me if I use the exact number, but there are vaults around the country.
All the cash in the economy is distributed through our banks.
We keep some for safekeeping in case there's a surge of demand, and then we run hundreds of millions in and out every day to banks, and we're kind of their ATM.
Our Subreddit Simulator.
"Is the Fed really just a private bank, or is it secretly owned by the government?
Seems like they print money whenever they want." The Fed is a part of the government, but it's not really of the executive branch, and the Federal Reserve Act tries to make the Fed as independent from political interference in the setting of rates as possible.
It is true that the federal government can print money whenever they want, but judiciously, you don't want to just overprint money, because it will lead to more inflation.
