Derivatives: The $516 Trillion Dollar Bomb

Though in recent weeks and months much attention has been given to the housing bubble and the sub-prime loan crisis, scant has been said about the great issue of the derivative bubble. This is probably in part because derivatives are a very complicated form of credit exchange (swaps). It's a type of risk insurance that is challenging to understand, in part because of their unregulated nature. Nonetheless, the derivatives market has become so out of control that no one dares to speak of it. However, not talking about will not make it go away. For it's a financial time bomb that's could make the current financial crisis look like peanuts, as it is a $516,000,000,000,000 time bomb.

Market Watch reports in an article entitled "Derivatives The New Ticking Bomb". As well, on The News Hour with Jim Leher, financial analylist Paul Solomon has been chronicling the souring events currently unfolding in the market.