Technically its the growth of the money supply rather than the contraction of the money supply. The money supply is still expanding due to rounds of Quantitative Easing, i.e. to re-inflate the whole private cartel of private banks (which all failed spectacularly in late 2008) called the Federal reserve and the US treasury Ponzi scheme rather than let it rapidly deflate to point that the worlds reserve currency becomes worthless. The result is trickle up economics with the wealthy financial controlling class just buying time to exchange fiat currency into realizable physical assets whilst preparing for a post peak oil future. Other challenges such as the peak oil situation are putting pressure on these folks on how to achieve the best way to transform a post industrial society into a system of Serfdom, Manorialism, Feudalism and Slavery once more (i.e. stable post industrial informational controlled societies through compliance such as use of information physiological operations such as terrorism) can be achieved whilst still in control of those financial methods of control of the wider populace. The next 20-40 years will be extremely challenging for everyone as letting the greatest historical Ponzi scheme collapse too quickly would be neither beneficial for anyone. You can't put a frog into boiling water as it will quickly jump out, better to let it get comfortable and then turn up the heat.