[out of story] BEcause I love playing with economic concepts...you guys are arguing the elephant-that is, focusing on the obvious features immediate to hand.
Billions in a bank can, indeed, generate more cash-it's called 'fractional reserve banking' and it's how Bank of England, the Federal Reserve, and most national banks work and function.
Jeff Bezos can't liquidate his assets overnight. Shocking, huh? that's because his 'net worth' is invested across such a wide scale that he needs accountants to keep tabs on his accountants, who are then keeping tabs on the accountants monitoring, maintaining, and manipulating the actual investments.
St. Elon of the Musk has the same thing-he can't just liquidate those billions, it would take a lifetime to get close and probably be a financial and economic catastrophe as seemingly unrelated loans suddenly decapitalize and collapse (along with bank failures...so MANY bank failures...)
For those that don't understand why a run on the banks is bad, there's the debts owed portion of the ledger of assets. This represents how much money is owed to you, and it's an asset.
How it works, is this: you put a billion dollars in the bank, and the bank, then, lends out that money through cheques...nine times at once. The bank charges interest, the repayments include that interest, but if you come and try to yank your billion dollar bill out of the bank, you'll collapse the credit they've extended to those other nine people.
because you've removed the reserve.
get it? This is how rich people can stay rich-you lose a billion bucks, but you're owed nine billion, you're 'bankrupt' until you're paid back. (thus, how someone can go 'bankrupt' four times and still be a billionaire.)
now, when you apply it to a national scale, what Liz is finding isn't entirely someone pocketing the kroner, it's more like manipulations causing that 'owed' nine billion not to be paid back at the rate it's supposed to be, despite the debtors making regular payments (in part, only in part), this, overcharging on contracts, delays (that cost money as well, since delays cause penalties when you're talking loan repayment)...
It's a lot of complex credit-production-productivity formulas, and when you stack it with ordinary pilferage, theft, fraud and abuse? it can become enormous. The more complex your financial system, the easier it is for someone unethical to game it. This isn't the prestige thing, that's an oversimplified (and frequently inaccurate) assessment. Your auditors don't need to look for the diamond-studded toilet seats, they need to look for the cheap plastic ones that cost as much as something made of solid gold.
