Real Estate bubble market

"You wonder, finally, how many current homeowners will lose their houses? How many developers will lose the shirts off their backs? How many banks will get stuck with foreclosed property? And how will the United States economy function without a phony-balony real estate bubble market driving it?"

A man who wishes to borrow 10 dollars is a beggar, a man who needs 5'000'000 dollars is-obviously- a serious business man.
But the moral of this tale goes further.
The weak man is kicked around and despised until he becomes VERY weak.
A man who owes his bank 5000 dollars gets rude letters and threats.
But if you are unable to give back 500'000 dollars you are in a commanding position.
No small bank manager likes to report to head office that he had made a silly misjudgment, lent without security and lost a lot of money.
On a different level: there are a lot of Third World countries that are, they say, almost bankrupt: at the same time they have only to whistle to get a few more billions from the World Bank and others because their bankruptcy would cause havoc and ruin on the international money market and many large banks would fail all over the world.
Their only strength is their weakness.
Weakness rules the world.
But it is not so easy to be weak.
To achieve real, heart-rendering weakness requires a certain type of character, a certain amount of cunning and, in most cases, a great deal of bad luck.
Fortune is a whimsical deity and she frowns only on the chosen few.