An Unsophisticated Con

“"What if this scenario we are seeing played out is just a very sophisticated con?"

It's not even a very sophisticated con. It's fairly crude, at its core a simple pump n' dump. They dump out at the height of the pump, you get left holding the bag of leaking hot air plus the bill to recapitalize those who scammed you.

They all knew that the speculative wealth built on inflated home values had a finite life span- that's why the big players all started betting against the toxic soup long before their small fry clients got the warning.