"It was the billions upon billions of side bets...banks securitizing mortgages, hedge funds speculating on mortgage-backed securities...that put far more at risk than the total value of all the sub-prime mortgages." Jennifer Taub--Other People's Houses--yale uni press 2014

add to that credit default swaps and short sales, and Clinton's last-minute Commodities Futures Modernization Act, and the deck is pretty well stacked with marked cards