Word: credits
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Imagine taking out a life-insurance policy, not on yourself, but on a sick man who lives down the street. That way, if he dies, you’ll be sure to turn a profit. This is but one of many bizarre features in the world of credit default swaps—a financial instrument that crippled our global economy. While many different events and policies contributed to the financial crisis, it is safe to point a finger at credit default swaps. The U.S. government should decisively regulate these complex financial instruments...
...When a group of J.P. Morgan bankers conceived credit default swaps 19 years ago at the Boca Raton Resort & Club in Florida, they could not have imagined what a monster they had unleashed. In 2007, the credit default swaps market value was $62 trillion, more than quadruple the entire U.S. gross domestic product...
...credit default swap is an insurance policy on an investment. Wall Street took out insurance on risky investments, like taking insurance out on your car. The party that issues the CDS agrees to insure an investment in the event of a loss, and, in return, the CDS buyer agrees to pay a monthly premium. However, a CDS is not your average insurance policy. Insurance is highly regulated, and CDSs are unregulated, creating many dangers...
...This trust requires considerable faith in rating agencies, such as Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s. To make a low-risk purchase of a CDS, a firm needs to buy from an insurer with an excellent credit rating. If any of these ratings are inaccurate or get downgraded, this will dramatically affect the CDS and cause panic. Therefore, the government must institute a reasonable collateral requirement for the sale of CDSs. Further, rating agencies must closely monitor investing schemes that use insurance from highly rated firms like AIG to make risky investments in poorly rated firms...
...These are only a few of the issues to be fixed with credit default swaps. Although they are not innately bad instruments and can provide much-needed liquidity, when left unregulated they can be used in ways that cause tremendous detriment to our financial system. It is not surprising that investor Warren Buffet refers to credit derivatives as “financial weapons of mass destruction...