This comment is weird, but typical of HN. Most of the off-balance-sheet shenanigans of pre-2008 world are gone. There is now a global regulator that covers all systemically important financial institutions, that also includes very large insurers. The world of financial engineering is much lower risk and higher transparency than pre-2008.
You say shenanigans don't really happen, I posit they are routine in business and consultants are paid a lot of money to uncover the next shenanigan every day. The law is always lagging the action it is designed to stymie and we certainly don't have a utopia going on outside the window today.
