Bed Bath & Beyond stores in Canada are shutting down as the chain鈥檚 parent company in the U.S. deals with a near-fatal case of running out of money.

However, the American chain has been saved from going through a catastrophic bankruptcy by a bizarre piece of financial engineering. (I have read several accounts of what the company did, but it is so arcane that it is difficult to summarize.) It has left the parent company with a new infusion of cash 鈥� about US$225 million now 鈥� to survive for a while longer.

This was not, in any way, a scam. It feels like it falls in a fun new category that lies between 鈥渟cam鈥� and 鈥渘ormal finances that make sense.鈥�

The financial engineering seems to be predicated on the idea that the stock in Bed Bath and Beyond fluctuates a lot, because BB&B was for the last several years a 鈥渕eme stock.鈥�

Which means that a lot of people online got very excited about making a concerted effort to buy the stock, driving its value higher. For a while last year, the stock was worth more than $20 a share!

It鈥檚 now around $1.50 as I write this. (The whole thing may not actually work out that well for the new investors.)

Meme stocks have been driven by a combination of irony, greed, mob mentality, and nostalgia. The other famous meme stocks of the last couple years include GameStop, a brick-and-mortar video game retailer, and AMC Theatres, a movie chain.

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The thing that鈥檚 bothering me more and more about BB&B鈥檚 troubles, and meme stocks, and the general financial news lately, is that all of it seems to be one of three things 鈥� it鈥檚 all either financial engineering, it鈥檚 scams, or it鈥檚 just plain weird, like the meme stock craze, or NFTs, or play-to-earn video games.

The financial system has been a locus of scams and frauds and irrational exuberance forever (go look up the South Sea Company bubble, or the Dutch tulip craze).

But we allow it to exist, because it did a few useful things, like providing financing for new businesses and innovations, and loaning people money for houses and higher education.

Money and bonds and stocks and mortgages are all abstractions, but at least they鈥檙e useful abstractions.

But over the last 30 or 40 years, the system has been going through repeated cycles in which these abstractions have further abstractions built upon them, and so on and so on, until it鈥檚 hard to tell what鈥檚 down there at the bottom. It鈥檚 just games with numbers and math, games that happen to pay out very well for a few people who know how to manipulate the rules, or to write their own.

But it doesn鈥檛 help anyone buy a house or get a student loan, start a small business. It won鈥檛 keep anyone at BB&B Canada from losing their job.

Maybe financial engineering will help BB&B get back on its feet in the U.S., but I doubt it鈥檚 done more than buy time. But someone along the way will have pocketed some nice fees for thinking up the whole scheme.

That鈥檚 who gets rich, these days.