

Alot of debt gets bundled into bonds or other investment vehicles and sold. So small retail investors, retirement funds, etc end up holding the bag. Sometimes the banks lose, but they can take tax write offs and if the loses are too great, they can often get bailed out by the government.
Sears could have been what Amazon is today. Hell, it the 19th century, it WAS was Amazon is today. But the focus is so often on financial trickery over actual sound business practices