The creature from jekyl island is an eye opener about the fed. I learned about it from Robert Kiyosaki he also mentions it in his book new rules for the rich a must read.
The Federal Reserve is not federal and does not have reserves to write it’s checks.
It is a private bank who will ensure that all bills bonds notes (which are debts of the us government - so buying these puts the us government in debt to the buyer) are purchased.
The federal reserve purchases them therefore putting the us govt in debt to the federal reserve. It is there so if private institutional and international investors are not willing to buy the debt they are there to ensure there will always be a demand so it can ensure it controls the interest rates (less demand means higher interest rates as buyers are not willing to take on enough of the counter party risk).
Bonds bills notes are not like stock they do not give ownership. They provide money via a loan and create debt.
The federal reserve has the ability to change its ledger (balance available for spending). So basically they can log into to their account and just add money with a few clicks of a mouse. Would be nice huh? 
for this right given to them by the us government they ensure the bonds etc will be purchased. The us treasury then has to pay interest to the fed. However, what many don’t know is that whatever money the fed makes every year ie via interest payments etc, it has to pay to the us treasury at the end of the year (basically making it a wash). It’s the ultimate fiat system.
So instead of the treasury just printing money out of thin air and causing massive inflation it is borrowing money. However this is what many fiat currency systems have had and it is why the US, Canada, Britain, and Japan etc have been able to accomplish this “game”. However the spending increases each year due to military, benefit programs, salaries, and other us expenses. The us has a defined debt limit and has to constantly increase it to allow the ever growing credit card have a higher and higher limit so it can keep paying all its expenses and the ever growing interest payments.
One of the feds primary purposes is to control inflation which it targets 2% a year (not accounting for food, energy, and houses as it states there are to many factors out of its control to factor this blah blah blah).
The fed is now trying to find a way out of the mess with the massive debt taken on in the last 5 years while raising interest rates and without actually having to cut back qe or actually raise them causing the market to plummet. Therefore it is now attempting to use the temporary purchases of primary overnight funds to artificially raise the interest rates without having to make an official rate hike and scaring the market.
This is not a statement on my stance good bad etc of the above its just what is…
Wow that’s a mouth full, I hope it helps.
The Fed “posts” in their ledger, “The USA owes the FED $1B”.