Category Archives: Derivatives

Foreign Exchange Swaps: Hidden Debt, Lurking Vulnerability

How hidden foreign exchange swaps contribute to financial fragility.

Wolf Richter: How Ratings Agencies Inflate Credit Ratings to Get Deals & Fees

Haven’t we already seen this movie? Race to the bottom in gaming credit ratings agencies for commercial real estate Collateralized Loan Obligation deals.

Why the UK Needs a Financial Transaction Tax

Claims that a financial transaction tax would be difficult to implement and raise little revenue are fake news.

Wall Street Has Been Gambling With Student Loan Debt For Decades

As the student debt crisis continues to mount, major financial institutions are making record profits from student loan asset backed securities.

Interest Rate Derivatives Trading Explodes to $6.5 Trillion/Day

Interest rate derivatives trading spikes over last 3 years; the UK currently dominates. Will this continue post-Brexit?

Deutsche Bank Throws in the Towel, Announces Restructuring into Bad Bank/Good Bank, Firing of 18,000

The beginning of an end for Deutsche Bank.

Mr. Market’s Hissy Fit May Be Over….For Now

Puzzling out the markets have changed, and not changed, since the crisis.

Brexit Chaos

It’s getting harder to figure out what exactly is happening on the Brexit front, but even through the fog of negotiations, things don’t seem to be getting any better.

Brexit Derivatives Risk: Did the City Overplay Its £38 Trillion Hand?

Novating UK derivatives contracts entered into by EU clearinghouse members is a ginormous mess, particularly in a Brexit crashout. But how serious a mess?

Post Crisis Measures Have Failed to Tame Derivatives Risks

Derivatives remain an untamed systemic risk.

Double Whammy: Implicit Subsidies and the Great Financial Crisis

Follow the subsidies, and you will understand why we had the crisis and why not enough has been done to prevent a recurrence.

Pigs Want To Feed at the Trough Again: Bernanke, Geithner and Paulson Use Crisis Anniversary to Ask for More Bailout Powers

The chief architects of the exercise in looting otherwise known as the post-crisis rescues are back promoting more of the same.

The Michael Hudson Report: The “Next” Financial Crisis and Public Banking as the Response

Michael Hudson explains how we’re still in the crisis that started in 2007-2008.

Bill Black: Mankiw Whiffs on “Learning the Right Lessons from the Financial Crisis”

Bill Black debunks a book that tries to relitigate the crisis by denying that Lehman was insolvent.

Brexit Crash Out Virtually Certain

Brexit uglies are only getting uglier.