Who Really Runs the World? | Peter McCormack interviews Simon Dixon

If you look at the Western world today, it's easy to feel like things are spiraling out of control. Politics seems completely dysfunctional, national debt is endless, and there's a permanent sense of crisis. It feels like chaos.

But what if this isn't chaos at all? What if it's a deliberate structure, a system with its own rules and incentives that are simply hidden from plain view?

This post is a summary of the key takeaways from my viral 2-hour podcast with Peter McCormack, which aired on his YouTube channel on January 8th, 2026, and has since garnered over 240,000 views — now ranking in the top 10 most-viewed videos on Peter’s channel, out of 1,000+ videos published over the past 8 years. For those who don't have time to watch the full deep-dive, these are the most critical concepts you need to understand.

The original video description set the stage perfectly for our conversation:

Western politics appears chaotic - broken states, endless debt and permanent crisis. Simon Dixon argues it isn’t chaos at all, it’s structure. In this conversation, Simon lays out how money creation, debt, asset management, and access to capital now matter more than elections, ideology, or national borders. Governments, he argues, have become balance sheets and citizens have become collateral.

We talk about how the debt-based system works, why rolling over debt keeps everything alive, how asset managers shape outcomes and why wars, bailouts, inflation, and social breakdown all follow the same incentives. It’s about power, money, and who actually makes decisions, and what that means for people trying to live normal lives inside a system that no longer works for them.

The following points are the most impactful takeaways for understanding the true power dynamics shaping our world.

1. The Foundation: Our Financial System is a Debt-Based Ponzi Scheme

Every pound or dollar in existence is created as a loan with interest attached. This model was established in 1694 when a $1.2 million perpetual loan was made by William Patterson to the King of England, giving private banks a monopoly on creating the national currency.

This creates an inherent, unsolvable problem. Imagine a world where for every $100 created as a loan, only the $100 is created, never the extra $5 needed for interest. Where does that $5 come from? It can only come from a new, larger loan. This is the mathematical certainty that guarantees the debt will always grow, forcing the system into a perpetual cycle of escalation just to keep from collapsing.

This structure inevitably leads to a "K-shaped economy." The class closest to the money creation gets access to cheap capital to leverage into asset ownership, while everyone else is forced deeper into debt.

"the rich fundamentally become the class that own the assets and everyone else just becomes the assets that's paying all the interest"

This perpetual need for new debt is the system's engine, but it requires a public-facing entity to absorb the liability and direct the funds. This is the true role of your government.

2. The Players: Your Government is Just a Middle Manager

To understand the system, you must first discard the civics-class illusion of government. The modern state is not a sovereign power; it is an instrument, subordinate to corporate and financial interests. It serves two primary functions: a "piggy bank" and a "battering ram."

As the "piggy bank," the government uses its ability to take on massive public debt to funnel money to its corporate sponsors and lobbyists. As the "battering ram," it takes the public blame for the negative consequences of these policies—inflation, failing services, and social decay.

Politicians who want to succeed must secure lobby financing from powerful corporate interests. Once in office, they are accountable not to the people who elected them, but to the sponsors who funded their campaigns. The much-publicized meeting between BlackRock's CEO Larry Fink and UK Labour leader Keir Starmer is a perfect real-world example of this power dynamic in action.

3. The Real Rulers: The "Financial-Industrial Complex" Pulls the Strings

The most powerful force in the West is the "Financial-Industrial Complex," an interconnected network of institutions centered on the allocation of capital. This is not an organized cabal with a secret leader, but a "ruthless game" of power dynamics, incentives, and betrayals.

Asset managers like BlackRock are the most important nodes in this network. Their power isn't from direct ownership, but from managing your pension and investment funds. This consolidation of capital gives them the proxy votes to control nearly every major corporate board. BlackRock alone effectively holds 20,000 board seats, allowing it to dictate corporate policy across the economy.

Even a figure like Elon Musk, for all his perceived power, must operate within this system. To fund acquisitions or expansion, he requires capital from this very complex, often borrowing against his own stock. This makes him beholden to the markets they control and the partners they choose for him, like the Gulf sovereign wealth funds.

This complex doesn't just influence markets; it operationalizes its power on a global scale, turning geopolitics into a business venture. This is the structure behind the chaos of modern warfare.

4. The Business of War: Global Conflicts are Profit-Driven Operations

From this perspective, major global conflicts are not primarily about democracy, ideology, or national defense. They are business operations designed to achieve specific financial and strategic goals for the Financial-Industrial Complex.

The Russia-Ukraine war serves as a prime example. This conflict is an operation by the US Financial-Industrial Complex to achieve three main objectives: fully subordinate Europe to US corporate interests, generate hundreds of billions in revenue for military contractors like Lockheed Martin, and position asset managers like BlackRock to acquire Ukraine's privatized assets once the conflict ends.

"So the war between Ukraine and Russia was not a war between Ukraine and Russia. It was a war between the US financial industrial complex and Europe."

Likewise, the 20-year war in Afghanistan was framed as a failure, but from a corporate viewpoint, it was a "very successful operation." It generated $2 trillion in revenue for military contractors, re-established the lucrative opium trade after the Taliban had suppressed it, and passed the inflationary cost to the American public.

5. The Playbook: Foreign Policy is Just Aggressive Asset Management

The Financial-Industrial Complex uses a clear, step-by-step playbook to take control of a country and manage it as a portfolio of assets. The process is as follows:

1. Impose Debt: Use institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to saddle the target country with excessive debt it can never repay.
2. Seize Control: As a condition of the loans, force the country to install a Western-aligned central bank and privatize its natural resources, like oil fields and mineral deposits.
3. Destabilize and Install: Use intelligence agencies and military force to turn genuine local protests into full-blown "color revolutions," remove any leader who represents the people, and install a corrupt puppet who will serve Western corporate interests.

Viewed through this lens, the conflict in Ukraine is not an anomaly but a textbook execution of this playbook on a massive scale, with the ultimate goal of turning an entire nation into a new portfolio for the complex.

"...make sure that Chevron Exxon Loheed Martin General Dynamic JP Morgan the IMF all can come in and use your country as an asset management portfolio"

6. The Endgame: A Slow Collapse for the Middle Class

The logical conclusion of this entire structure—endless debt, captured governments, and profit-driven warfare—is the complete evisceration of the middle class in the West. The system requires a constant transfer of wealth upwards, and that wealth must come from somewhere.

This collapse won't be a sudden, dramatic event like in the movies. It is a slow, insidious grind designed to be almost imperceptible on a day-to-day basis. It's a gradual reduction into a new form of feudalism, where the average person owns nothing and is saddled with debt they can never escape.

As Peter read on the show, a post from 2013 perfectly described the future we are now living in:

There will be no collapse the way some of these people think of it. It's not going to be like the movie Dawn of the Dead or whatever where one day suddenly shit hits the fan prices skyrocket and everyone begins to riot and the SS comes marching down the street to kill everyone. There will be no happen. It's far more insidious than that. Read the poem The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot and you'll understand.

You'll just notice that every day simple things will get a little bit more expensive. Everyone's homes and apartments will get smaller. Your work hours will get longer but your pay will decrease. You'll see your family and friends less. And you'll find that in time you care less about them. Every day you'll find yourself lowering your standards for everything, work, food, relationships. Job security will no longer exist as a concept. You'll notice that houses, apartments are shrinking. People will start hanging on to clothing longer and longer. Less people will get married. Even less will have children. People will engross themselves in technological distractions and fantasy will never truly experience in the real world. Whatever dream people used to have about what their lives were going to be will become for them a distant memory. The only thing left for them will be the reality of their debt and their poverty. And every minute of every day they will told "You're stupid ugly and weak. But together we are free, prosperous and safe."

That is the collapse, the reduction of the American man into a feudal surf, incapable of feeling love or hate, incapable of seeing the pitiful nature of his situation for what it is or recognizing his own self-worth.

Conclusion: Your Money is Your Only Real Vote

The core message is this: the system is not broken; it is working exactly as designed to benefit a select few at the expense of the many. Engaging in traditional political action is a trap. The system has a plan for popular revolutions: infiltrate them, turn them violent, and use the chaos to usher in a "technocratic nightmare" of total surveillance and control through Digital IDs and Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs).

There is only one viable solution: boycott the system.

Your money is your only real vote. Every pound you spend locally, every dollar you save in an asset outside their control, is a ballot cast against the system. Take practical steps every day: support local businesses and farmers, minimize your debt, and, most importantly, become an asset owner outside of their control.

Owning Bitcoin in self-custody is the single most powerful tool for opting out. It is a direct boycott of the Federal Reserve system and the entire financial establishment that depends on it.

The only way to win a rigged game is to refuse to play by their rules. Your true power lies in focusing on your family, strengthening your local community, and voting every single day with your money.

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Simon Dixon
Bitcoin OG | Investor | Geo-Political & Financial Analyst

DISCLAIMER 

The information provided in this blog and the associated interview represents the personal opinions and speculative analyses of Simon Dixon, developed through over twenty-five years of experience in investment banking, economics, and monetary reform. It is vital to understand that Simon Dixon is an independent thinker; his participation in this dialogue does not constitute an endorsement of Peter McCormack’s views, nor do Peter’s questions or assertions necessarily reflect Simon’s own convictions or findings. Both individuals maintain their own distinct perspectives, and this conversation is intended to explore complex, often controversial ideas rather than present a unified consensus.

The subject matter discussed—including the structural nature of the global financial-industrial complex, the characterisation of fiat currency as a debt-based Ponzi scheme, and unconventional geopolitical analyses of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and Middle Eastern stability—is provided solely for informational and discursive purposes. Many of the interpretations offered regarding historical events, such as the analysis of 9/11 or the speculative origins of Bitcoin, are based on Simon’s personal synthesis of declassified documents and "following the money"; these should be viewed as his personal analytical lens rather than legally established or absolute facts. Furthermore, references to "genocide as a service," "pre-crime agendas," or the "lizard people" query are part of a broader discussion on power dynamics and should not be misconstrued as literal endorsements of specific conspiracy theories or harmful ideologies, but rather as critiques of systemic incentives.

Importantly, nothing contained within this blog or the interview should be interpreted as financial, legal, or investment advice. While Simon Dixon discusses financial sovereignty, the "boycotting" of the traditional banking system through Bitcoin self-custody, and the potential decline of Western economic growth, these are shared as philosophical positions and personal strategies. Users must conduct their own independent research and seek professional counsel before making any financial decisions, as the views expressed are subject to interpretation and the inherent volatility of the systems discussed. Simon Dixon assumes no liability for how this content is used or for any actions taken based on the subjective interpretations of this material.