"What's closer to the root cause of all of these financial schemes is the mental health crisis impacting young people." I think this is very true. I do think that it not only applies to young people, there are a lot of middle age plus people waking up and realizing they are probably never going to be able to retire without some sort of miracle moonshot. I know an intelligent 65+ year old nurse that just torched 30k on trying on a bad crypto investment. Imagine all these people that just rode the massive bull market up in stocks nearing retirement age with just enough to retire. Stocks are likely approaching a peak and suddenly these people that had enough to retire will find themselves on much shakier ground while inflation is pumping. Odds are high many of them will make a desperate gamble as well.