Why Isn't the Fed a Burnt Pile of Rubble?
Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. - Milton Friedman
Add that to, in a free market, prices always deflationary. If someone figures out how to make something for less, that quickly spreads through the market. We are hundreds of times better at mining iron ore, moving it, smelting it and rolling into useful shapes than we were 100 years ago. 200 years ago we were spinning thread, and weaving it by hand. It would take one person a week to make someone a shirt. Now, with machinery, i don't think it takes even 30 minutes, in total from growing to knitting, to make a T-shirt.
However, the inflation has been so high that even with these massive decreases in costs, the price still has gone up.
Only in electronics have we seen prices go down. Or, stay the same and the product becomes better. Still, if we didn't have inflation, electronics would be really, really cheep.
Money printing = inflation = pure evil.
We only allow it to exist because we do not comprehend how evil it is.

Money Printer go BRRRRR
If you are the person who prints the currency, how hard is it to not print a little extra for yourself?
The banks who dabbled in fractional reserve lending are the ones you read about having bank runs. If the bank only kept their customers money safe and secure, there could never be a run on the bank. The run happens when that money, that is supposed to be kept safe, is not really there, it is somewhere else. It is a giant shell game, where you are the mark.
Now, if you were the printer of the currency, then you would never be caught in a bank run. You would just print new pieces of paper for all that came in and asked for their money back. (that is, until you thought it was better for you to keep what is left and close up shop, bail-ins) So, you can print lots extra. Your only concern is that printing too much leads to a collapse in the confidence of the currency (runaway inflation)
So, if you were the banksters, hiding behind the central banks, or the govern-cements, you would want a system where you could print and print and print.
And that is what we have now.
The Forbes 500 lists the top 500 poorest people in the upper class. The banksters have all the money in the world. T.H.E.Y. buy things, and have you (and you, and you, and you) pay for it

Banksters have bought everything
Now, the Fed is not supposed to actually buy anything. That is why they have their bestest friend, Black Rock, buy everything. And their bud, Billy Gatez (a very poor person) buy up lots of farmland.
And, if you have a modern mortgage, they own your house. Even when it is "paid off" it is still their house.
When the music stops, we will find all the money is gone, and the banks are all closed, and no one actually owns any stock, and, even during that, they will be filing foreclosures against your house.
Basically, the banksters have been playing monopoly. And they think they have won. They are just trying to work out how to announce this without upsetting all the sheep.
They have two REALLY BIG problems
- Everything they think they own is going to be worthless.
- The people will not honor property rights when the game is over.
What do the banksters own? A bunch of corporations that will soon be out of business. A bunch of houses that no one wants to live in anymore. A bunch of gold that will soon be worth that of a shiny yellow metal.
And when people figure out what the banksters did, the people will not honor the deals made with swindlers and con-men.

Inflation, the tax that takes your life.
Everyone today just expects the price of good to go up.
Why? Why do we believe that when the price of televisions has been going down, and getting better. We have been so duped that we believe that up is down.
Everyone has heard of the power of compound interest. They use it as a way to sell you on the idea that you need to be invested in the stock market. However, few have applied it to the compound cost of inflation.
Basically, the money you made 40 years ago, even if you saved lots of it, is almost worthless today. Like, you saved enough to buy a house then, well it is worth maybe car now. And the banksters have caused all of this.
So, instead of doing the decent thing of saving your money under your mattress, you have to gamble with it in the stock market just to keep up. Else you are losing. Losing all of your hard work.
The banksters are stealing your life.

Knowing all of this, why do we still suffer the (not)Federal (no)Reserve Bank(cartel) to still exist?
Well, one reason is that if we fight it, a lot of people get hurt. That is what happened when Pres. Jackson fought the 2nd national bank. However, that is because we allowed them to use their stolen wealth to manipulate everything.
This next time the banksters will be wiped out. Many will be found hanging from street lamps. Many will throw themselves out of windows. And, those who keep their heads, will find that they own nothing of worth.
The thing is, we really can't shut down the Fed. If Trump succeeded in doing that, we will find, soon, that congress or the treasury, or the "new" Fed will be printing money again.
Fortunately, we now have bitcoin. And so, besides shutting down these con-operations, we will not allow them anymore because we will have independently verifiable deflationary currency.

The run happens when that money, that is supposed to be kept safe, is not really there, it is somewhere else. It is a giant shell game, where you are the mark.
The run happens because the bank is over leveraged with monetized debt based assets that drastically declined in value as was the case for Silicon Valley Bank after their MBS and 10 year T bonds collapsed. Almost no bank is even keeping fractional reserves post 2020 and its highly unlikely to come back now that they are introducing stable coins.
Now, the Fed is not supposed to actually buy anything. That is why they have their bestest friend, Black Rock, buy everything. And their bud, Billy Gatez (a very poor person) buy up lots of farmland.The FED actually owns over $2 trillion in MBS right now. I agree with your larger point that fiat money is only as good so long as people keep believing in the promise that USD is a good store of value for their labor and investments. Once people lose faith in that promise we'll see a rapid collapse.