>>2288887 (old)

Well it's not quite that simple, because the Fed Board of Governors and each of the Reserve Banks is audited each year (used to be Deloitte, now KPMG) -- the audit reports are posted to the BOG website but are hard to find. And all the surplus from each entity must be paid to the Treasury every year. This isn't to say they don't use the latitude they have to cheat, as Andrew Jackson said of their predecessor ("speculate in the breadstuffs of the country").