The initial lenders aren't idiots. This is a multi-billion dollar business. They sell the obligation to another sucker, who will often bundle it with a bunch of other debt (good or bad) and sell it to institutional investors.
Your 401k in 2008 or whatever had some shitty balanced fund that held 0.5% of assets in some toxic shit like Sears/K-Mart for the "high yield" portion of the fixed income component. So you make some money on government, agency and Apple/Exxon bonds, and get a high yield on K-Mart that goes poof a year later.
Your 401k in 2008 or whatever had some shitty balanced fund that held 0.5% of assets in some toxic shit like Sears/K-Mart for the "high yield" portion of the fixed income component. So you make some money on government, agency and Apple/Exxon bonds, and get a high yield on K-Mart that goes poof a year later.