Money is valuable in so far and people believe it's valuable. The purpose of a central bank is to instill confidence in the value of the money they produce. The reason the Fed is a separate corporation is because it is supposed to act as a corporation looking out for its own best interests which, as for any central bank, is in the interest of the national economy.
What the gold standard folks and the anti-fed folks just fail to realize is that the solution is much worse than the problem. Bringing monetary policy back under the portfolio of politicians is just way worse. Want proof look at any country that actually has a politically driven central bank. Argentina is probably the best example but there are many others. Politicians cannot put the broad interests of their country in front of the short term interests of themselves and the citizens.
In the end, the fed receives interest and pays a dividend to the government. There's no international cabal of elites that secretly enriching themselves off the fed. It's set up to avoid conflicts of interest and meddling. Bottom line.
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