[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

That is very interesting....had not heard of that before...

[philman_36]

Relax, little Brother...

...we can make more.

[freeangel]

OOOps. I just went to google video and searched “The Gig Is Up” It took me right there.

[blam]

Dig deep enough and you'll find derivatives at the bottom of most of the 'doomsday is coming' stories.

Like this one: What's Dead (Short Answer: All Of It)

It looks like a legimate concern.

[Marine_Uncle]

It has been floating about over the past few months as one of the underlining problems global credit markets are experiencing. One form of derivative is say a certificate of deposit security. Where a lending institution packaged questionable mortgage loans with other supposed Moody AAA rated securities and sold them to the banks of the world.
The idea I believe as have read in some postings here is the hope was to continue to get enough money flowing in to these institutions so that if we started to have a lot of home foreclosures they would have enough of cash to cover the ass.
Little did the world of finance that bought these worthless securities realize the bottom would fall out of the US housing market. And in short the securities they purchased would be worthless. The loaner never had adequate founds to cover all the default securities they sold.
Since there is no regulatory system in place to monitor this form of derivative market, things where able to get totally out of hand. AIG was one of the biggest marketer of these type derivatives I believe.