A terrible fury has been unleashed. Nothing seems able to halt it. World’s largest insurer? Smash it down. The globe’s most prestigious investment banks? Consume them. Imagine something like Galactus, the terrifying Marvel comic book monster that roamed the galaxy devouring worlds. What is mighty enough to stop it? The answer is: itself.

The villains are supposedly the short-sellers. They short a bank stock, the price falls, the bank’s credit is downgraded, forcing it to sell assets at fire sale prices. This weakens its capital, the stock falls further, and so on. In practice, short-sellers are shorting anything with leverage. Yet by doing this, they also ultimately short themselves. This is Galactus’s weakness: insatiability.