Insightful analysis, except for one thing. The CEOs and hedge fund managers who got us into this mess are not fools - they knew all about this stuff. And I tend to think they knew full well that highly leveraged, risk-free returns were no such thing and headed for catastrophe.

But they didn't care because all they needed to do was keep the house of cards standing for long enough to make their billions and then get out, and let the suckers take the hit.

This is just another variation on the age old pyramid scheme. If you're a hedge fund manager, you're at the top of the pyramid and it is entirely in your rational interest to keep the pyramid going as long as possible, even though you know it's going to collapse eventually.

Most pyramid schemes collapse after a few thousand investors. This scheme, because of the complicity of the Feds, was allowed to grow until it had its hooks into the entire global economy. But don't kid yourself - the scheme was never meant to increase overall wealth, but rather to transfer it from millions of suckers to a select few.

And it worked perfectly!