[Red in Blue PA]

Then such derivitives trading should be outlawed.

[politicket]

Then such derivitives trading should be outlawed.

How do you unwind what has already been done?

Also, more than 500 trillion dollars of the derivatives are traded over the counter (OTC) between two agreeing parties. How do you stop all of that?

Not all derivatives are "bad". For example it's not necessarily bad for a farmer to agree to a wheat futures contract with a buyer. It helps to stabilize the price of wheat.

The problem is that greed has run amok in the derivatives industry and people are making bets on things that even the sports bookies in Vegas wouldn't touch.

[untrained skeptic]

Then such derivitives trading should be outlawed.

Doing so now, with their use so extensive, would cause a worldwide economic disaster, and that is not an exaggeration.

Now would be a good time to try and find a way to restrain and limit their use in the future, but you can't just step in and outlaw their use all of a sudden.

Derivatives trading in itself isn't really a bad thing. Over exposure to derivatives trading is bad.

They reduce risk for one party by shifting that risk to another party. The problem is that these large investment houses have allowed too much risk to be shifted to them. If the market changes suddenly, companies that had seem solid suddenly see their assets go up in smoke.