TS - You've got it pretty much right, in my view. I'll second the recommendation for reading Web of Debt, and also recommend Money as Debt as a condensed video version, available on the web. The documentary Zeitgeist (also on the web) and its sequel also speak of this inherent fallibility of our debt-based financial system (cascading into collapse around us as we speak) and of its manipulation by TPBT. It takes putting together the very real physical limits to growth with the ultimate fantasy that is our fiat currency financial system to give one a complete picture of the predicament of industrial civilization. And while I'm spouting recommendations, let me also throw Culture Change by Alexis Ziegler out there, available at conev.org.