[Errant]

What percentage of total profits do the "owners" get?

I hear shares of the "loot" are determined by the assests held/owned by each member bank, which I do find a strange way of dividing up "loot". More questions: How are value of assets determined, audited, and etc.?

[Toddsterpatriot]

I hear shares of the "loot" are determined by the assests held/owned by each member bank

Then why did the member banks get less than 2% of the Fed's earnings last year?

[Pelham]

“I hear shares of the “loot” are determined by the assests held/owned by each member bank,”

Banks covered by the Federal Reserve System have to join- their “shares” mean membership, not ownership. There is no “divvying up of the profits” to the member banks. All profits to the Fed in excess of salaries, rent, and other routine expenses revert to the US Treasury.

Back in the late Carter, early Reagan years some state chartered banks fought against being included in the Fed system because “owning a share” would mean that some of their assets would be tied up and would not earn anything for them. The shares only mean membership, they earn nothing.