Only a bunch of commies would want to bring the derivatives market under control.
I trade derivatives for a living - STAY AWAY FROM MY MONEY. If I smell class warfare on Freerepublic then where do I turn? Will I be forced to descend to the level of those who criticize my way of earning a living? Will I be forced to vindictively claim that carpenters, doctors, plumbers, etc. all require greater government oversight?
Did you read the article, or just defending your livlihood of buying and selling financial instruments created out of thin air?
The problem with derivatives is not some guy trading Vanilla calls,its the over the counter deals which are very often naked. An un-hedged position is good and profitable if your bet is working out, however if it is not working out you might destroy your company, and your counter-party. The only way to stop that is to make sure that you have equity to cover all your liabilities on all your positions, NO MATTER where the underling asset goes. The only way to enforce that is through government regulation by SEC. Obviously this regulation should only kick in when the size of deals is large enough to have adverse effect on the US Economy, some small time hedge fund with 50Mil under management should not be bothered.
This is where capitalism fails: Financial Firms don’t care about risk management. Cause what’s the worst that can happen? If they are large enough they get bailed-out,if not it has catastrophic effect on the whole World economy. A small firm if it goes bankrupt - big deal the manager still gets his fees and bonuses. Risk management cost money,more risk you take more money potentially you can make. Thus you need an outside party to control the catastrophic risk for large firms and for economy as a whole.
I write software for a living - STAY AWAY FROM MY MONEY. Software is a complex instrument that non-technical users don't fully understand.