I recently saw the DVD by the Ludwig von Mises Institute. It tells of the origin of the Fed and the policies of the presidents that helped usher in the Fed and the stealth of John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan trying to set up the Fed. It was during President Woodrow Wilson's presidency that the Fed was set up surreptitiously by the Treasury secretary and the Wall Street bankers.
The Institute feels that the Federal Reserve is the cause of inflation as it prints money according to Walt Street. The Fed is the dog of Walt Street. The leveraged loans are okayed by the Fed which agrees to print the money according to what loans Walt Street made to corporations. Since the gold standard was abandoned the dollar has lost value from 1975 onwards.