You can actually skip step 1 if you want. That's what they did with toys'r'us. Those actions have long since convinced me anything financial is just a game played by the very rich.

Buy up everything and then default on our loans? Yup. If they aren't trying, their incompetence is actually pretty impressive.

Man, no trying, it's past and present tense now, doing and successfully did.

Set up a shell company. Set up a trust somewhere with no capital gain tax. Shift ownership of the shell to the trust. As the shell, come to an agreement in principal with the bank to buy it. Use this as colateral to raise a loan from the bank for the purchase amount. Transfer the debt to the bank as part of the merger with the shell company. The bank now basically owes itself to itself. Sell the combined company from the trust, thus avoiding capital gain tax.

Brute force loan application: Keep trying random identities until one goes through.

pulls out minigun from payday 2

loan approved

😎

Set the bank on fire and try the next one

The bank loans its ten billion to you

A bank that's subject to government regulation isn't going to do that unless "you" have billions in assets to justify that kind of sale.

and you pay me those ten billion for the bank

And surely you report that sale on your taxes and pay the relevant taxes, right?

No one's net worth has changed.

Except you, once you've paid your taxes.

You default on your loan to your own bank.

Ok, so "you" missed the payment. Now what? You think "you" can walk away cleanly? Declaring bankruptcy to wipe your debt is only something that's available if the government provides that kind of mechanism, and generally that's only available to people who have otherwise followed all the rules, which wouldn't include buying a ten billion dollar bank when they had no assets.

The only way this scenario works is if you ignore all the laws. But, if you're ignoring the laws, why not just make it simpler and simply steal the bank's assets?

But now you can lobby the government to bail out your bank using tax money.

Effectively nothing has happened.

A lot of people lost a lot of their money and got their lives destroyed. Also, the previous owners liquidated their shares.

But yeah, you haven't got any richer.

Is capitalism real?!?!n1?

nothing has happened

Right, which is why it’s not some hero-swaggers-triumphantly maneuver. That’s the ridiculous part.

Except that there is also value from other clients and from the brand, which is then helping you to actually earn money