does anyone else think its a bad idea to let a privately owned bank (the fed) control the issue of currency?

Pardon my ignorance, but who owns the federal reserve?

It's not only a bad idea, it's unconstitutional, and it is a complete scam. Every year these bankers print up an arbitrary amount money (backed by the full faith and credit of liers and thieves), and it has gotten so bad they recently stopped reporting how much money they are even making.

The scam goes like this: When the money is printed the Fed owns it immediately. They then loan it to banks who loan it to others. On these loans is some amount of interest. It doesn't matter how much interest, because 100% of all money created that year (and every year since the Fed took over) is PRINCIPLE. Therefore there is nowhere for the interest to come from, except to forclose on people's mortgages and the like. This is how the richest country in the world is trillions of dollars in debt. This system can only be perpetuated by the continuing devaluation of the dollar. The dollar is today worth 3 cents compared with the dollar the Fed began with. Mathematically, the system must go bust.

What happened to the day when our paper was covered by our gold ?

The government cannot create gold from thin air. All the government has to do now is crank up the digital printing press and the politicians can have all the money they want to fight thier nasty little wars and finance thier bloated welfare/warfare state. I think it is a littel more than just coincidence that shortly after the Fed was established the United States government dragged the American people into WWI. It must also be remembered that the first Central Bank was used by Britian to help finance thier war against France. Central Banks, government issued fiat money, inflation, and war are all part and parcel of a corrupt bargain between the Lords of War and the Lords of Finance.