Really nice, thought provoking post, @denmarkguy :-)
My two cents:
"Some people say" (another great way to stay vague but sound authorative ;-)) that in this world you follow the money to get to know who "they" are. Works in every scale or environment. At work "they" is the board of directors. In your country it's the corporations with an exchange rating. In the world it's the Central Banks and their cohorts. We've made a world for ourselves where almost everything equates to (the power of) money.
This is but one of many possible answers of course: "they" will remain nameless, faceless, untouchable, unidentifiable. ;-)
Thanks for a great post!