> The interest that the Fed collects on its investments is paid by the federal government, and then returned to the government. But this wash cycle still saves money because those interest payments would otherwise be made to the outside investors who would have purchased the bonds.
> “It’s interest that the Treasury didn’t have to pay to the Chinese,” Ben S. Bernanke, then the Fed’s chairman, told Congress back in 2011, when the annual windfalls were still new and surprising.
> The interest that the Fed collects on its investments is paid by the federal government, and then returned to the government. But this wash cycle still saves money because those interest payments would otherwise be made to the outside investors who would have purchased the bonds.
> “It’s interest that the Treasury didn’t have to pay to the Chinese,” Ben S. Bernanke, then the Fed’s chairman, told Congress back in 2011, when the annual windfalls were still new and surprising.