Scary capitalism.

• Author: Peters, Charles
• Position: TILTING at windmills - Derivatives - Brief article

Even worse, and this should make you nervous, there are other financial instruments out there called derivatives. If you want to be sure of getting a headache, ask someone to explain derivatives to you. But you should understand this much: they are not certain to be worth one cent more than the paper they're written on. Their value is derived from the value of other instruments, like those bundled mortgages, so that when the value of the bundled mortgage becomes...