@GhostOnTheHalfShell

Your understanding is correct.

The financial instruments are largely opaque, more so by complexity and "innovation" than by design.
Even the regulators don't quite understand them properly.

The two fantastic movies about GFC; "Margin call" and "The Big Short" while fictionalised give a great primer how "we" got there. "Billions" is an entertaining series that shows some dodgy ways these immoral folks use to make money.

The top end of finance is literally run by the smartest people in the room. If you are super smart graduate, you don't go into engineering or medicine to make obscene money, you go into #finance

There is a constant pressure to #innovate
Create new financial instruments that can be monetized.

Matt Talib did a great expose in #GS a while back.

One if the many morally reprehensive things they did was, they owned 6 aluminum warehouses, and to keep the prices up (and stock low) they were shipping aluminum between the 6 warehouses.