Unregulated global derivatives debt market hits $647 trillion mark

June 5, 2012 – GLOBAL ECONOMY – The hits just keep coming and with $647 trillion reasons to worry, aka, the total notional derivatives now outstanding as of Q4 in 2011 per the Bank of International Settlements just released this afternoon and published officially on Monday. Of course the problem is that as one can see in the graph above, the amount of Gross Credit Exposure has returned to 2008 levels, something the world might want to pay attention to. Once the lessons of the mistakes of the past are ignored, the risk factor increases proportionally and with Europe teetering on the edge of a Lehman event, the increase in interest rate derivatives might well indicate a new risk that has not been accounted for: A sudden collapse of the Euro currency below the 1.20 or even parity level. Such an event would make Lehman look like a picnic but there is more bad news beyond that as it is not just interest rate derivatives that have increased past 2008 levels as the chart above demonstrates, but some idiots placed bets on the currency markets which means that a collapse of the Euro creates an irreversible game of dominoes and destruction: Unfortunately for us common folk, no one has taken the time to explain the implications of a 10, 20, or even 30% decline in the value of the Euro versus the US Dollar in a compressed time period. This is one warning sign of many from the report but the other one is more mundane and ties to the Federal Reserve’s mandate, er, unwritten mandate to support the U.S. equity markets by laundering money through its member banks to purchase stocks and give the illusion of a strong economy. –John G