Banks have been playing the "safe as houses" (when they own them) game for centuries. I can still recall when having a mortgage was only as a last resort for many home owners. Now everyone is forced into one. If one owns their home outright they tell you you have a ATM in the living room, and thus they mortgage it back again. This is the greatest dispossession since the Norman Conquest. Note the book Homewreckers. During the great financial crisis of 2008 (which remains unresolved), their friends in high places decided on a Neutron Bomb (which killed most of the folks and left the banks better than intact).