Powerful families/humans have been around for aeons gaining their powers thru nefarious activities (an Anon today quite rightly quoted Honare de Balzac - 'Behind any great fortune lies a crime').
If i was one of the powerful the 1st barrier I would build (as soon as my sycophant army was in place licking my arse ) would be a (2) financial control barrier using a dick head like a Rothschild to roll in the banks and other loaded financial institutions like ze Vatican or failed incestuous aristocracy that have lost their marbles then using (3) black op armies (secret guilds) to terrorize the shit out of everyone who might stand up against me then i would use my sycophants and secret peeps to infiltrate all (4) governments (why not?) and play my little game while along the way creating (5) institutions like the United Nations and the (6) CFR and think tanks (7) like the Rand corporation and the Tavistock institution to prove I wuz right and yous were wrong to legitimize my naughtiness. Then I would buy the (8) media whores (less fun than real ones) and use an (9) army of useful idiots that want to be part of everything without being able to do anything in real life besides jump up and down and hey presto we have a world where I rules. And (10) we the people are fucked.
Okay its not one powerful family…indications are its about 14 globally. So their power and influence wud be 14x compared to the Ix fold says this Anon on a Saturday night after 3/4 of a bottle of cheap Hardy's Bin 161 Shiraz.
Still think we have a good chance to beat the fuckers. :) because as Q says they are stupid ad although our influence is pretty pathetic we are a majority.