Quite so. This isn’t a matter of such complexity that those with decent financial training couldn’t grasp it, though it is highly interconnected. It’s a matter of the Masters of the Universe not wanting the light of day shined upon their greedy and economy threatening machinations. It should be obvious to anyone paying attention that corporate interests have the ear of the politicians on both sides of the aisle, since campaign donations and lucrative lobbying gigs and the like grease most if not all palms in Washington. This is rent seeking at it’s most egregious and we are now living with it’s effects. When someone tells you it’s too complicated for you to understand, they are pulling a fast one. These are people we’ve endowed with our trust and the nation’s power, using tactics not unlike a used car salesman glossing over the terms of their lease paperwork. If this doesn’t change we can look forward to continued abuses of this sort and the continuation of taxpayers being offered up as lambs to the slaughter to take the fall.

FDR eliminated all “payable in gold” clauses from contracts by federal fiat. I think eliminating all CDS contracts which are not owned by holders of the actual bonds — all the ones which are gambling rather than insurance — could be done by fiat equally easily. Simply declare that said contracts are now and have always been against public policy and are void automatically, ab initio, and unenforceable. The Supreme Court will back Obama up if he does that.

People who actually got them as insurance will get their payouts; gamblers won’t.

I’m one of the great unwashed who likes to read and comment at Daily Kos, and explanatory comments like yours help me to make somewhat informed decisions as to what I believe. Your posts seem concise and comprehensible.

Hi guys! This Conference sounds to be great! They have very interesting panels on identity and a featured panel on Barak Obama and you can also make a real African Safari…
The Institute of Identity Research (IDmap) announces an international conference
on Identity Politics on the Internet to be held in Kenya on the 27th to 29th of
August 2009. The aim of the Conference is to create discourse in the area of
Identity politics on the Internet and other related topics.
The Conference will be graced by several leading scholars who have written and
researched extensively on issues of Identity. We hope that this conference will
result in solutions and better understanding of the problems facing issues of
identity in the contemporary context.
AN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
IDENTITY POLITICS ON THE INTERNET
August 27-29, 2009
Organized by Institute of Identity Research (IDmap)
http://www.idmap-conferences.net
Will be held in Amboseli Wildlife National Park, Kenya
Featured panel: Barack Obama’ Election and Kenyan politics of Identity:
Will he identify himself with the World or with his People?

• The Dead line for submission of the Abstracts is 01.05.2009 (200-500 words)
in Word or PDF formats
• The Dead line for submission of full-text papers is 01.07.2009
Preliminary program of the Conference includes the following panels:
• Kenyan 2007 Presidential elections and the Internet
• Traditions and Identity in Kenyan politics: Barak Obama as a Luo
representative of Kenyan identity politics
• Facebook and Identity: do old ethnicity definitions still matter?
• World Identity politics: Case-studies and Comparative Analysis
• Parties and recruitment in the digital world
• Gender, ethnicity and empowerment: what is better to be a white man or a
black woman?
• When religion comes to the Internet: the new ways to build and reinforce
religious identity
• Government on the Internet: new ways to preserve Nation-state and its
identity on the Net
• New English and E-Linguistic: jargon and vocabulary of Internet campaigns
Participants are welcomed to join the following working groups:
• Computers and identity
• Culture and identity
• Mathematical expressions of identity
• Internet and Politics
• Internet Vocabulary
Best Identity MA/PhD Thesis work award:
During the conference the Institute will award the best MA/PhD work submitted
for the evaluation. The work should reveal an original and innovative approach
in the field of Identity with its expression on the Internet. Information
regarding submission procedure can be found on our site or through direct
contact of our Administrators.

http://www.idmap.net

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Swaps_and_Derivatives_Association

It’s dense, but worth reading. Of particular note: “The enforcability of the close-out netting provisions is absolutely vital to financial institutions active in the derivatives market since the ability to net allows them to allocate capital only against the net figure they would have to pay on close-out of an ISDA Master Agreement rather than the gross amount. ISDA has obtained legal opinions from all important jurisdictions confirming the effectiveness of the close-out neting provisions in those jurisdictions. Members of ISDA are entitled to rely on these opinions. ISDA also produces a model “Netting Act” which can be adopted by jurisdictions where close-out netting does not work effectively at present.”

Why ISDA contracts are not being referenced and enforced first and foremost — prior to having the US Treasury (i.e., taxpayers) pay AIG so it can pay its banking and FIB counterparties — is a true mystery. Unless we’re dealing with massive criminal malfeasance: It is possible the banks and FIBs realized — one by one, or all together in a collective, blinding satori — they were in too deep to AIG et al, and decided they had to push their exposures to an absurd limit, so the federal government had no choice but to bail them out. Even so, the first loss should be borne by the firms contracting with AIG et al. I do not recall any instance of AIG being sued for failure to perform. This entire process has been silenced by the banks and FIBs getting the US Treasury to keep them whole. How exactly was that done? Is anyone aware of any legal action along these lines?