Those men are merely the board of the New York Regional Bank. Their only power is to hire and fire the Regional President of the New York Fed, who has a single vote on the FOMC. The Board of Governors are all appointed by Congress and the President and they have 7 votes to the Regional Presidents' 5 votes. The Federal Reserve was decentralized by Congressman Glass and Woodrow Wilson to alter the Aldrich Plan and dramatically reduce the ability of the New York Fed to be used by Wall Street and the Money Center Banks to gain disproportionate influence over monetary policy. The one member of the board of my Fed that I have met manufactures plumbing supplies in a rural town that you couldn't find on a map without Google's help.
AdamNTM, your assertions are inconsistent. You argued at first that the Fed was a "private" institution exploiting the Government. I believe I have demonstrated that the Government is well in control of the Fed and now you argue that the Government is "private" and I guess exploiting itself.
But the logical point that I must make because your causal chain is simply too glaringly nonsensical is your last comment about debt. If the Fed is debasing the money supply as part of a nefarious plot, the effect would be to wipe away debt and level society. While the Middle Class could be negatively affected, the negative effect that they would feel would be a creditors, not as debtors. The savings of the nation would be washed away; the debts would not become massively burdensome. This is simply how inflation works. It does have the effect of eroding Middle Class living standards, but it does so by destroying their ability to save as it transfers wealth from the creditors of a society to its debtors.
The main effect the Fed's policy is really having is transferring wealth from the low household debt middle of the country to the high debt coasts. This is what is happening in an explicit household to household manner; however, there are bigger General Equilibrium effects as a commodity levered middle of the country also benefits in other ways from inflation. Back in the 1980s, Jim Grant wrote a memorable article contrasting my hometown of Houston with Boston. He held up Houston as the city most levered to benefit from inflation while Boston was the city most levered to win in a deflationary environment.
As for my personal wealth, I am a not particularly materialistic person. I made considerably more money in my last job. My current career will never provide me the kind of remuneration that my previous one did. My shift was completely voluntary. I actually had great difficulty spending my income and still do to some extent today. At this moment, I have more money in my checking account that I made last year, gross, not even net. I'd be willing to wager that your level of total consumption last year was higher than mine. My average annual level of consumption for the last five years has been less than 40% of the American median, which is the statistical definition of poverty.
So being in Middle America and possessing a large checking account, as opposed to an overly large house, I am a self-interested opponent of inflation and loose monetary policy. Possessing cash savings, secure employment and a stable income, I should favor deflation that would lower the cash cost to me of goods I wish to consume.
I would point your attention to Europe. The ECB is maintaining a tighter monetary policy and the results are worth examining. Spain today is facing massive deflationary pressures and has exhibited a 45% youth unemployment rate for over 2 years now. My friend Marta graduated last year with a masters degree in engineering and is working for 24,000 Euros, which terms of actual buying power is not much more than $24,000, irrespective of what exchange rates tell you.