The Federal Reserve Unleashed?

Many think that the FOMC and the Fed are unaudited and free agents.

Not true, as this exchange reveals.

The Fed is legally accountable to NOBODY

Incorrect. Congress can remove Bernanke if they so chose.

They are not even required to let Congress audit their activities.

This is a falsehood. The FOMC and FR are audited every year and publish figures on a weekly basis. It is the specific names and identities of the recipients of discount window loans and the trillions in bailouts from the Fed in exchange for bogus MBS paper that they will not divulge. If Congress wanted to they could force Bernanke and Geithner to give us the list.

It's called contempt of Congress, and they can jail 'em if needed.

If a quasi-government agency can distribute trillions to well-connected insiders in a matter of months without any kind of oversight or accountability...

What are all those hearings with Ben and Tim and Hank? Opacity? They are accountable - we just won't hold them accountable. We re-elected everyone who voted for the 1st Stimulus Bill, and we get what we deserve. Congress won't be adult, so we are screwed.

...what is the point in even talking about the deficit? You could cut everything 50% across the board and balance the budget immediately, plunging the country into a deep depression in the process, and the result of your fiscal austerity would simply be that Ben's bankster friends would buy up all the assets in the USA at fire-sale prices with trillions lent them by the Fed.

We are going to get a Super Depression anyhow, and all those bankers who looted in cahoots with Paulson and Bernanke are, indeed, going to buy up all the assets at fire-sale prices with the trillions we lent them. The only way to stop them is via violent revolution. But how to know they aren't someone who saved in good times to buy in bad? That's the rub.

The Super Depression will happen. It is mathematically inevitable.

Cut everything by 50%. Defense, health care, everything.
Then work out what you can keep going with the money you have.

If these keeps up we will be forced to do this when the money runs out. Without deficit financing, we will have to revert the budget to tax revenues - ~1.25T.

This will occur in a very short time frame. A few weeks at most when it begins, who knows when that will be. We will have to cut immediately, no choice. Then the riots begin. Your Grandmother's SSi check will either bounce, not arrive, or be reduced -45%.

For defense, this would mean and end to being the world's policeman, and a military tasked to defend the USA from likely threats(rather than being capable of fighting a global war on two fronts).

Yep, and when we do this and revert to 1-3 carrier battle groups piracy and other issues will explode. Regional bullies will return. Who do you think prevents global piracy? How do you think our Navy practices?

If you maintain a strong tactical and strategic nuclear force, you shouldn't need a large conventional force to deter any hypothetical invasion of US soil.

No, but our freighters will be hijacked coming and going, held ransom, pirates, tribute to regional powers, efc. Outside of US territorial waters you won't be safe, and the high seas will not be safe as they have been the past 70 years.