Acknowledge da D-Bomb

Derivatives or "weapons of mass financial destruction" as Warren Buffet called them and particularly credit derivatives are the elephants in the room that are not being acknowledged. Many have yet to realize that it is not subprime lending that has caused the massive and unprecedented losses suffered by major financial institutions; rather it is the high risk derivatives and "investment vehicles" that mortgages and many other forms of debt have been "securitized" or packaged into. [...] The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency recently released their Q3 Quarterly Derivatives Report. Incredibly one financial institution alone, J.P. Morgan, had a derivative book that increased from 80 Trillion at Q2 to $91.7 Trillion in notional at Q3 [this includes 7.77 Trillion worth of Credit Derivatives]. J.P. Morgan has done surpisingly well in recent months considering. $10 Trillion is nearly the size of the entire U.S. economy or value of all the goods and services traded in the U.S. on an annual basis.