I wouldn’t be surprised if the people who came up with it also knew it would be bad news, but also that it would be good for them individually.

Like the way those securities worked, nobody was gonna be caught out individually. The only way they go wrong is if the market takes a bad turn and then you’d have a horrible domino effect that takes it from bad to worse, but at that point your golden parachute activates and everyone gets bailouts. Kind of brilliant, in a fucked up way.