I owe my soul to the company store...

[kentuck]

Treasury Secretary has suggested we tighten the loopholes in the $605 trillion dollar derivatives market. Six hundred and five trillion dollars!? How much can we tighten it?

If we, the taxpayers, are expected to be responsible for $605 trillion of derivatives, then we might as well put a bullet in our heads right now. There is not that much money in the world. Personally, I am not ready to be responsible for $1 dollar of their ill-advised schemes. They can write it off as far as I am concerned.

This is all so unbelievable.

[keep_it_real]

1. We will just delcare the $605 trillion dollar derivatives null and void

We'll just write it off as if it never existed. End of problem.

[Zynx]

2. There's a big difference between notional value and what's actually on the line in those contracts.

Many of them simply offset. Look up notional value and go from there.

[kentuck]

3. They don't have enough notions to back it up.

And we can back up their gamble if we take the notion?

:-)

[struggle4progress]

4. US GNP is only about 15 trillion. 605 trillion in derivatives is simply blue smoke and mirrors

[jtrockville]

5. Smoke and mirrors that WE'RE on the hook for.

[David Zephyr]

6. Government of Goldman-Sachs by Goldman-Sachs and for Goldman-Sachs.

Now, tighten those belts, you ungrateful peasants.