Im not sure what you think I don't understand.  I agree with most of what you said. The one exception is you seem to think they have the ability to remove money from the system without us knowing and calling for their heads. Although they legally can recall money from banks back to the fed but only to the point that Liquidity remains okay enough without endangering their survival. The last number I heard on Fractional reserve banking was they could lend 20 times the amount of assets they have and that number is 20years old.  But that money is not completely liquid for the Roths. Remember Trump's top guy just called the banks to check on liquidity and they confirmed it was good.  That means the Fed has not recalled in the funds.  They did that in the Great Depression which is why the banks went bust.    And they can't just do that without anyone noticing so its not liquid for them. If they did that and everyday folks went to the bank and couldn't withdraw their funds you can bet DJT would call them out on it and there would be calls to end the Fed if Donald said it was their fault.     As I understand it, They can't print our money unless our government agrees to them printing it. We request it and then it gets printed at their command to our mints.  Trump isn't going to agree to have more printed unless he gets it for our budgetary needs.  Mostly we agree but I see a few limits on how they can  access the money under our current unfriendly environment. Though their resources are vast, their expenses are vast as well. LookupQ's post where he reports the R's were forced to sell off their Black forest estate.