This... It's perversely comforting to imagine there's a cabal of power players running the world from the shadows with uncanny ingenuity.
Ingenuity no, power yes. Power rests on cunning, a low level of intelligence shared by snakes, spiders, wolves, foxes, birds of prey, etc.
It's a well known fact forgotten by most that whoever controls the volume of currency and credit in a country also controls pricing and all commerce in that country. It's also a well known fact that there actually is a small cabal that has a monopoly on the issuing of currency and credit in the US.
They're very cunning and some of them are even smart.