For example, few people realize that one of the largest owners of US Treasuries and US government sponsored enterprise (i.e., Fannie, Freddie, and Ginnie Mac, or collectively the GSEs) debt holdings is... the US government itself, via the Federal Reserve. As of yesterday, the Fed owns and is earning interest income on $2.3 trillion of treasuries and $1.9 trillion of GSE debt.[a]
In other words, the US federal government and GSE-guaranteed borrowers owe $4.2 trillion to... the US federal government itself.
Among other things, this means the US treasury is currently paying annual interest on $2.3 trillion of US treasuries to the Fed, and at the end of the year the Fed hands over all that earned interest to the US treasury, in perfectly circular fashion.
This startling fact is just one of many -- many! -- important details about modern monetary systems that are generally poorly understood by the public and which are utterly ignored by this article. Don't waste time reading it.
[a] https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/current/h41.htm#...