Yes and no. They and the 13 subservient member banks have been able to skim the system for 100 years now, mostly tax free. Both the FED (monetary) and Treasury (tax) were set up to run war based economies in at the end of colonialism. It is amazing the people have tolerated it, but we need that patriotism and stuff, we just dont know what the true price we pay for it is, and it aint just dead poor people.

They have amassed tangible, portable wealth like gold and industrial rights, arrable lands, security in the judicial branch to enforce it. Those are the cash flows they want. They really, really do not want to be landlords of foreclosed McMansions and local governments.