I'm not sure where you fall in your schooling, but consider taking a Macroeconomics course at a local college. You'll quickly understand that most people talk out their *** when it comes to basic economic theory.

First off separate printing money from money creation. That is a whole 'nother lecture for another time. Money is created from interest rates in the form of loans.
Unlike the days of old the Fed creates money by saying how much money banks can loan out. The Fed can say we want to print more money, but that is rarely done since it is much easier to dictate how much money is in the economy by controling the loan industry.

1. The Fed doesn't print money, the Mint does and when they print money it's only to a point so the m1 supply equals a specified amount that equals the amount of paper money destroyed in circulation.

The Federal Reserve sets and maintains the Fed Funds rate which is the interest rate banks can charge for overnight loans. This percentage is also used for many other types of loans. When you hear on NPR that the Fed raised interest rates by .5 or 1 percent that is the rate they are talking about.

This rate affects many things. Lower interest rates means more lending since consumer don't want to pay as much for loans. I'm sure the fed funds rate as of now is at 1 or 2 percent. The banks add on a couple percentage points for a profit margin.

So now it is time for a quick lesson in macroeconomic theory. Money is created through inflation. Inflation in small amounts is a good thing. It means there is economic growth and for an economy to function it needs to be there.

Now how does money get created you may ask? Here's a simplified example. First National Bank decides to loan out 150$ to Suzy Q. Suzy uses that 150$ to purchase raw materials to make one couch. Suzy then takes couch and sells it at a mark up for 250$. That's a profit of 100$. She pays off the 5% interest. That extra cash she paid back to the bank is the money created.

The US operates on a fiat money system. EG our money is worthless. The only thing backing it is the full faith of the US government. The Fed is an independent body from the government. It is a semi public organization. The president appoints the chairmen and the largest members of banks in the country appoint the other board members.

China is buying up treasury bonds. In a time of inflation or substantial economic growth the Treasury will sell off federal debt to help suck money out of the economy. Anyone can buy these bond notes, you, me, China, Timbuktu, etc. The Treasury Department and the Fed sometimes operate counter to each other (eg The Treasury deals with federal government debt and the Fed deals with keeping a proper amount of growth in the market.).

2. I don't believe there are any. Pegging money to a rare metal limits the ability of the government to remove money from a market place. If 1 dollar equals one pound of gold then the governing body can't take steps to eliminate money from the market. This is why the great depression lasted so long. The government couldn't inject cash into the economy leaving little liquidity in the market.

3. In a country like the US we have the Fed that regulates interest rates for creation of money. In countries like China or the UK. They have specific ministries that handle such tasks.

In our country, if we need to increase the liquidity of the market place we lower interest rates. This increases borrowing and thus creates growth (and adds more money to the market place). If there is too much money in the market place then the Fed raises interest rates to discourage lending and slows economic growth.

If there is too much growth we have a bubble. This means that the GDP growth was too significant and does not reflect actual hard growth done in the market place. In this case the Fed has to be careful to slow the growth down to ensure that actual growth can reach up to the cited value.

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-Typos courtesy of my mobile phone.