I would. These banks are and have always been highly corrupt, which will happen when you aren’t properly regulated. There’s just no reason not to gamble with people’s money (off the books of course) since Uncle Sam will pay you back the losses out of public money.
Imagine you’re planning a big party and you’ve set a budget for how much you can spend on food, decorations, and entertainment. To stick to your budget, you decide not to include the cost of some items, like extra snacks and drinks, in your official party budget. Instead, you plan to buy these items using separate money that you haven’t counted in your main budget.
In this analogy, your official party budget is like a bank’s balance sheet, which shows all the assets and liabilities they officially recognize. The extra snacks and drinks are like off-balance sheet assets—they’re costs and commitments that exist but aren’t included in the main budget (or balance sheet) that everyone sees. Just like how not accounting for these extra items might make your party budget look more manageable, keeping assets off the balance sheet can make a bank’s financial health appear better than it actually is, potentially hiding risks or liabilities.