If.

And for how much?

The system is a formalised version of "Don't tell the Tsar bad news."

Everyone has to pretend Better Days Will Come™ while the economy saws through the branch it's sitting on.

It works until suddenly it doesn't, and the banks demand a bailout.

Except we have the entire commerical business districts of small and mid sized cities destroyed from these practices and there is often no bouncing back from that. Oops.