Tag Archives: derivatives panic

We are heading for a derivatives crisis unlike anything that we have ever seen. It is going to make the financial meltdown of 2008 look like a walk in the park.

If the debt ceiling deadline (approximately October 17th) passes without an agreement that would be extremely dangerous - and if the U.S. government is eventually forced to start delaying interest payments on U.S. debt (which could potentially happen as soon as November), that would be absolutely catastrophic.

Wall Street has been transformed into a gigantic casino where people are betting on just about anything that you can imagine. This works fine as long as there are not any wild swings in the economy and risk is managed with strict discipline but, as we have seen, there have been times when derivatives have caused massive problems in recent years - the government bailout because of derivatives at AIG; the failure of MF Global because of bad derivatives trades; and the 6 billion dollar loss that JPMorgan Chase recently suffered because of derivatives - [but the next] derivatives panic that comes will destroy global financial markets, and the economic fallout from the financial crash that will happen as a result will be absolutely horrific. [Let me explain my contention.] Words: 1485