BaronVonBigmeat
Senior Member
- Sep 20, 2005
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The $62 trillion dollar credit derivatives market is 50 times the size of the subprime mortgage derivatives market, and is indeed larger than the entire global economy.
Welcome to the brave new world of credit derivatives driven collapses. A world that is far more dangerous than the world of subprime mortgage derivatives. A complex world that because of its sheer size can potentially cause more damage in a matter of days than the subprime mortgage derivatives caused in their first year in the headlines. The chart below shows the relative size of the credit derivatives and subprime mortgage markets.
"AIG’s Dangerous Collapse" by Daniel R. Amerman, FSU Editorial 09/17/2008
If you've never quite understood what derivatives were all about, this article does a pretty good job of explaining them.