<p>Last week Elon Musk suggested DOGE could audit the Mother of Slush Funds, <a href="https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2025/02/24/audit-the-fed-audit-fort-knox-audit-everything-003860" rel="noreferrer">the Federal Reserve</a>.</p>
<p>He even suggested Ron Paul could lead the team.</p>
<div x-data=" item_id: undefined, view: null " x-html="view || 'Product-Random-Featured'" x-init="view = await (await fetch('/shortcodes/product/random/featured?category=all')).text()">!!–Product-Random-Featured-All–!!</div>
<p>DOGE has already found at least $55 billion in waste and fraud. The Fed could ramp that up ten-fold.</p>
<h2>“Less Oversight than the CIA”</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.moneymetals.com/what-has-government-done-to-our-money/1769" rel="noreferrer">Economist Murray Rothbard</a>, in his book The Case Against the Fed, famously noted the Federal Reserve has less oversight than the CIA.</p>
<p>Indeed, you can find videos across the internet of Ron Paul — then-Chair of the House Subcommittee on Monetary Policy — pressing Fed Chairs for information only to get smirks from Ben Bernanke or Alan Greenspan.</p>
<p>Raising the question of who exactly runs the Fed.</p>
<p>To which the answer is the Fed runs itself. On behalf of the banks that <em>literally</em> own it.</p>
<p><img src="https://www.moneymetals.com/uploads/content/Ben-Bernanke-Federal-Reserve.jpg" width="810" height="402" alt="Ben Bernanke Federal Reserve" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></p>
<h2>Why Audit the Fed: Monetary Policy</h2>
<p>So what would an audit of the Fed uncover? There are 2 big areas: first, how the Fed conducts monetary policy — meaning <a href="https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2024/12/20/why-tax-when-they-can-just-print-003702" rel="noreferrer">how much money to print</a>; and second, <a href="https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2025/02/08/debt-spending-and-economic-survival-peter-st-onges-take-003821" rel="noreferrer">where to put interest rates</a>, which can spin money for Wall Street.</p>
<p>Today, these decisions are secret — we can only guess how much is negotiated over late-night dinners that touch on future employment prospects.</p>
<p>Given Wall Street banks habitually pay former Fed chairs hundreds of thousands for speeches — Janet Yellen got over $7 million — we can guess these are <em>fruitful</em> dinners.</p>
<p><img src="https://www.moneymetals.com/uploads/content/Janet-Yellen-Speaking-Fees-Money-Metals-Exchange-min–1-.png" width="810" height="501" alt="Janet Yellen Speaking FEEs" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></p>
<h2>Why Audit the Fed: A $7 trillion Slush Fund</h2>
<p>The second big area is the Fed as a slush fund. The Fed currently reports $7 trillion in assets.</p>
<p>These were overwhelmingly bought directly from Wall Street or hedge funds, including hundreds of billions in overseas swaps where the Fed just hands dollars to foreign central banks.</p>
<p><img src="https://www.moneymetals.com/uploads/content/FRED-Total-Assets-.png" width="810" height="676" alt="" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></p>
<p>We have no idea what back-room deals went on to use your dollars to bail out one bank — or hedge fund — but not another. Or one country — remember the Tequila Crisis — but not another.</p>
<p>In short, they practically printed up 7 trillion dollars and <a href="https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2024/01/25/the-fed-lost-billions-of-dollars-and-youre-going-to-pay-for-it-002952" rel="noreferrer">we have no idea where the dollars went</a>.</p>
<p>In fact, without an audit we have no idea if the 7 trillion number is even accurate — maybe it's 9, maybe it's 12. Who knows how many counterfeit dollars they dumped into special interests to dilute the dollar's buying power and siphon away Americans' life savings?</p>
<h2>Why the Fed has Never Been Audited</h2>
<p>A main reason the Fed has never been audited is because it's self-funding. Meaning it practically prints its own budget. Similar to the way a basement counterfeiter prints their own budget.</p>
<p>This means the Fed doesn't go to Congress for budget — in fact, it traditionally handed money to Congress — called remittances, and essentially some of the proceeds of its counterfeiting.</p>
<div x-data=" item_id: undefined, view: null " x-html="view || 'Product-Random-Featured'" x-init="view = await (await fetch('/shortcodes/product/random/featured?category=all')).text()">!!–Product-Random-Featured-All–!!</div>
<p>These were substantial — around 70 billion a year until Jerome Powell managed to put the Fed a quarter trillion in the hole. But even in the good old days, they represented perhaps 10% of what the Fed prints every year — the rest we don't know where it went.</p>
<h2>What’s Next</h2>
<p>The Swamp will fight a Fed audit for the same reason they fight all the audits — they own the grift.</p>
<p>The trick will be <a href="https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2024/11/29/how-to-end-the-fed-003653" rel="noreferrer">communicating to voters just how corrupt</a> Wall Street and the Federal Reserve are.</p>
<p>A 2022 poll by IPSOS found that 93% of Americans know little to nothing about the Fed — which the Fed likes just fine.</p>
<p>Fortunately, the corruption DOGE is currently uncovering can make it crystal clear to this 93% why the Mother of Slush Funds needs the Mother of Audits.</p>
