Racketeers? Racketeering? Does that really fit the situation? The rackets were traditionally Protection and numbers... "businesses" run by organized crime. And the key part of the definition in Wikipedia is this (my bold):
Traditionally, the word racket is used to describe a business that is based on the example of the "protection racket" and indicates that the speaker believes that the business is making money by selling a solution to a problem that the business itself created (or that it intentionally allows to continue to exist), specifically so that continuous purchases of the solution are always needed.
But this new type of racket, if that is what it can be considered to be, is a hybrid, among others it is also a weird form of mutually destructive reverse loan sharking... And also pushing of illegal highs known as unsustainable paper profits... getting the pushers and the whole economy hooked on more and more of the derivative junk... the whole economy strung out on money dope. And there's more...
They were and are not alone in this new more diffuse, collective and competitive form of racket of course it was all of Wall street and all their enablers and feeders... everyone was doing "it" in all its forms, but they did it best and came out on top...
"...selling a solution to a problem that the business itself created"
... But being a bit better at hiding their collective involvement in causing the problems, nothing as crude as smashing up a shop or threatening employees.....No, it was much more diffuse, and remote, faceless and deniable; subverting banks and lenders rewarding the pushing of loans, particularly mortgages that should not have been given, based on overvalued property, inflated incomes, duplicitous selling of the mortgages and withholding information to those buying the mortgages... that was just part of the first step... And then they (all of Wall street) kept the boom going in an artificial way years past its normal peak in part via the creation of derivatives which added up to being insurance against the problems that they helped put in place, allowed by regulation changes, law repeals, and staffing the SEC with toothless friendly watchdogs allowed them to make even more money... but then it seems less like a racket and more like an addiction. They and their co-racketeers lied to each other, to investors, to regulators, to Washington and even to themselves.
This new form of protection racket where they in a sense tacitly promise not to destroy each others investments by selling insurance on failure and hedging their bets... each hoping their set of bets will come out on top. And since they know things about the "players/horses/teams involved that others don't... things they may have even engineered, that sounds like match fixing, rigging the casino, the horse race, the big fight, the super bowl. You know the odds, you know how it will end up, you place bets to position your own outfit to make a killing.
And now that we are talking about gambling... this also looks like Casino skimming on a world-wide scale... but all legal and above board... This is also the 21st century version of Union Rackets, taking over Unions and looting their pension funds... why bother all that?...that's old school... there are easier ways to suck the pension funds... ALL the pension funds which after all have lots of wall street buddies on the boards and all stampeded into investing in the most alluring, high-return instruments... and the skimming part is the hyper-inflated bonuses the Racket-boys in charge pay themselves... They own the casino, they make the rules, they even make up the games to bet on. They win no matter what and along the way if the biggest meanest mob takes out their rival mobster corporations so they control more and more of the action, all the better. The racketeers went to the mattresses and when the dust settled and the collateral damage to the country and the world kept everyone distracted they took over or destroyed their biggest rivals...
You could also make a case that this was a form of prostitution racket... The kingpins ran a high priced stable of "Call People"....the devisers and protectors of these investments of mass destruction; the algorithm creators, the legal advisers who helped chart a more legal than not course and how to remove impediments, in the form of people or rules and of course the Hyped up Bean counters too, all for rent to the system pimpers who used them.
And how about the "Bean Counters" who helped play the old shell game to rubes... sleight of hand sorcerer-Alchemists who seemed to turn lead investments into gold... now you see it now you don't... Magic and Latter day organized crime... Make them see a "miracle" they can't refuse.... they sold Brooklyn bridges to yokels and the Feds on a daily basis...
And then this is a form of bootlegging, selling relabeled bathtub gin as something it isn't, or selling "legal highs" only they aren't legal and the profit "high" is illusory, at least for the duped customers.
Or were they just con artists in the biggest swindle of all time? Or maybe they could be considered as robbing banks from within... much cleaner and more profitable than holding it up in the old fashioned way.
Or is it the ultimate Kidnap/extortion?... give us a bailout or the economy gets it....
And now we all pay them the biggest protection money ever... too big to fail bailouts... yes they are the ultra racketeers... holding all of us hostage to their numbers game.
Where is the RICO act when you really need it? (my bold)
The purpose of the RICO Act was stated as "the elimination of the infiltration of organized crime and racketeering into legitimate organizations operating in interstate commerce." S.Rep. No. 617, 91st Cong., 1st Sess. 76 (1969). However, the statute is sufficiently broad to encompass illegal activities relating to any enterprise affecting interstate or foreign commerce.
But what if the "legitimate organizations" themselves start exhibiting organized crime symptoms from within... no infiltration from outside...? I think RICO is elastic enough to fit this too. The too big to take down ultra-Racket Sumo corporations, too slippery, too large... revealed as the giant vampire squids that they really are... maybe they have run out of hedges and camouflage... and they can make all the "racket" that they want via their paid-for party and lobbyists singing the "fight the commie plague" tune against those who are just beginning to tear their playhouse down... but somehow their collective shout, "pay no attention to that set of thieves behind the curtain and look at the Socialists may actually not work... Rackets are inherently temporary... but they get ridden as long as there is a spare dollar to squeeze out of them and still get away with it.
And here endeth the mixed metaphor extravaganza...