The great whore

I can understand how done people have, in times past, concluded that the great harlot described in Revelation was the Catholic Church. Certainly the great whore operated within/through the church especially during the centuries where the Catholic Church was the predominant bastion of power in most of the world. With that being said I suspect a more likely modern organization would be the core organizations of the international banking system that has influence in governments the world over. If there is an actual city corresponding to what John called Babylon my first guess would be New York City (although the sudden destruction of Babylon might be more metaphorical than literal). I can only imagine the chaos of that were to suddenly be destroyed.