Have you read the book (or seen the movie) The Big Short about the causes of the global financial crisis? It's brilliant. There are 10,000 firms that trade on Wall Street and only 20 firms shorted the market in the years leading up to the 2008 global financial collapse. Michael Lewis, the author of The Big Short, wanted to figure out what these 20 firms did differently. The answer is, they actually analyzed the underlying data and figured out that the loans that were underpinning collateralized debt obligations were “dog sh*t” (their words not mine) and about to default en masse. A further mystery was how these terrible financial products had gotten AAA ratings from the Big 3 credit rating agencies (S&P, Moody’s, and Fitch)? It turned out that the Big 3 were all completely corrupt as well. The result of all of this corruption is that the global economy collapsed.
Wow, what a thesis!
I wish you were wrong, too. Downloaded your thesis. Going to work through it.