Thanks for posting, interesting observation. The problem I see with these structures is that the physical power requirement of that centralised empire was established in the presence of big domestic oil availability, most of us boomers will remember the US oil barons of the seventies and eighties. The energy requirement of it hasn't changed much, but the sources of oil are drying up, to now much of it is imported, the consumption of it has caused pollution to a dangerous level around the world, as has nuclear (Another kind of energy by extraction) and the only thing to replace it with is solar, which is distributed by nature, and donated rather than extracted, so (a) not compatible with the centralised requirement for high density energy, nor (b) the economy of money-as-debt.
They are busily disseminating the message for ordinary folk to accept degrowth, but the real degrowth that needs to happen is the dismantling of the political power structures that they continue to work in.
We did see that almost happen when $4Tn stimulus was issued in US per month, they tried to paper over the temporary loss of control that actually took place, but some of us noticed.
Banks and big money investors, need the power of capital to remain solid to continue, to be able to enforce scarcity and promises to pay (Which are all ultimately promises to extract). They lose it when folk have enough free money to stop worrying about what capital they should invest in, so capital of all kinds devalues in markets, as well as oil prices going negative, and the environment showing a brief spike of recovery, the only time ever.
Ironically, it was Trump who made that happen, by issuing stimulus, he literally bribed everyone to "be good".
Now they argue that can't be done again, or continued, but it isn't true, because there are now tens of GigaJoules of energy per second coming into the economies of every developed country. The only way that donated energy can be represented by money, is that money has to be donated to all poeple to honestly represent it.
As long as that is not done, the money will continue to devalue, as it is no longer representing the real thing of value, scaling up in the background.
So it looks like nature has this all stitched up, the empire power structures will crumble, one way or another. It will be ugly, if they don't give it up gracefully and start to issue the free money sooner, rather than later, it seems to me.
