Does the Federal Reserve in its current form violate Article II?

• BoatShoes

  There is an element of the Federal Reserve system that is not under the supervision of the President of the United States and yet it has been vested with the power to execute our Nation's monetary policy.
  
  The Executive power is supposed to be vested in a single, unitary executive; the President under Article II, Sec. I of the U.S. Constitution.
  
  Hence, even if we think it necessary to keep a central bank and then to have it independent from the government to prevent inflation and the like, is that even justified under our Constitution?
  
  Can this be reconciled?
• bigmanbt

  The Federal Reserve is illegal. It was ruled unconstitutional after the Civil War for one, mainly because they used fiat currency over a backed currency. But technically, the Congress has the power "To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;". So it's not an executive branch thing.
  
  But trust me, there are more and better reasons to close the Fed than that. Start with how it's not even a government agency, the Federal Reserve is a private bank who gets to make the currency for the largest economic nation in the world, with little to no oversight on how much they print off. The right to coin money should be in the hands of the people, in the form of the Treasury of the US, not in the private banking cartels hands.