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To: Progressive Economics From: Doyle Saylor -------------------------------------------------------------- On Oct 16, 2008, at 3:00 PM, Chris Burford wrote: I would be interested to know whether other list members think that the collapse of these 50 trillion dollar structures will cause an unimaginable further lurch into profound depression or whether they are just worthless air, and could be blown away. Doyle; In a discussion of J.P. Morgan's derivatives this is a quote from Conde Nash Portfolio - J.P. Morgan continues to dominate the world of derivatives. It has derivatives contracts tied to $90 trillion of underlying securities. Of that, $10.2 trillion are credit-derivatives contracts. Those mind-boggling totals are somewhat misleading. They reflect what is called the “notional” amount in the world of derivatives, based on the underlying amount of the contract, not its current value. When offsetting contracts are taken into account, that figure is whittled down to a much smaller-though still enormous-$109 billion of derivatives, of which $26 billion are credit derivatives. That’s the amount the bank could lose if all its trading partners went out of business, an extremely remote event. But the exposure is climbing, up 17.4 percent from the end of 2007. That’s equal to 20 percent of the bank’s net worth. http://www.portfolio.com/views/columns/wall-street/2008/10/15/Credit-Derivatives-Role-in-Crash Doyle; Observe the notional value being stated above. thanks, Doyle Saylor This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [email protected] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
