Metatron,
What you grasped is correct, but did you need a recent PhD assertion to realise it? It is not news, no news at all.
What you described is not some big secret: it is called CAPITALISM, the economic system on which most countries of the world are based. The economic system that enables a 1% of a given population to thrive on the remaining 99% by exploiting them. And it's no new system, it is some centuries old.
And we don't need any 'conspiracy theories' and New-Age analyses to reveal it; do you know a guy called Karl Marx? He explained them all more than 150 years ago. Everything that is going on in today's world, was thoroughly foretold by Marx in his writings. He was not a prophet, he was a thinker who used the scientific method to explain history and society.
So, if you want to learn deeper how the world's engine works, get over the Cold-war anticommunist propaganda, and read Marx.