As columnist Will Hutton observed on October 12, "the dark heart of the global financial system is the $55 trillion market in credit derivatives and, in particular, credit default swaps, the mechanisms routinely used to insure banks against losses on risky investments. This is a market more than twice the size of the combined GDP of the US, Japan and the EU. Until it is cleaned up and the toxic threat it poses is removed, the pandemic will continue. Even nationalized banks, and the countries standing behind them, could be overwhelmed by the scale of the losses now emerging."
The U.S. is especially vulnerable because we may be approaching the time when the interest on the national debt will be unserviceable
