Whalen and Ritholtz On Risk of Global Derivatives Market – Modern 'Bucket Shops'
Courtesy of Jesse's Cafe Anericain
The counterparty risks and dominos in this market are enormous.
The lack of reform and regulation here is fomented by Wall Street money and political influence peddling.
It is a stimulus to pervasive market rigging since the markets are now much larger and more volatile than the economies that they purport to serve and model, the tail wagging the dog.
The first domino to fall may be a relatively small one compared to the global bond and currency markets, like a failure to deliver in a commodity that sets off a series of related counterparty failures and a break in confidence. In order to avoid this, the perpetration and subsidy of fraud takes on the nature of a larger Ponzi scheme that destroys the system under the rationale of saving it.
This is the heart of darkness of the credibility trap.
