25 to 1

I'm not an economist. However, it is clear from my studies that the average large bank in the free world leveraged every dollar put in that bank in any form by a magnitude of 25. So this would be like if you were playing monopoly the banker did a side bet outside the game with the monopoly money and then no one could play monopoly because he lost the bet and had no money. This is where we now are with the average large free world bank on earth.

If you or I had done this as individuals we likely would be in jail. However, a bank as a corporation is a legal fiction and cannot go to jail. However, the money lost was the money in all the large banks on earth. You may ask how did they lose all this money. The answer is simple. They bet that a bank like Lehman Brothers never could fail. When that bank failed everyone who was paying(including other banks) millions of dollars a month to hedge there safety should a bank like Lehman brothers fail was forced to pay up their credit default swaps of billions and billions of dollars. The only problem was that the $25 dollars they bet didn't exist only $1. Of course you and I know that this one dollars was hundreds of billions of dollars and the bet was into the trillions and not payable. So all the deposits in these banks are now owned not only by the depositors but also by the banks and companies that hedged their bets against the default of banks like Lehman brothers. This is why this is such a mess. None of the depositors really own their money because the money is spoken for twice or more.

So, governments around the world have stepped in and are one by one nationalizing banks and likely will continue to do so over the next 1 to 5 or more years.

To bad banks can't go to jail for what they did.