One human head hair for every derivative dollar.

[valerief]

600 trillion in derivatives

There are still over $600 trillion more derivatives out there and it is agreed by all that they are nothing more than bets on which way a company or some aspect of the economy will go.
http://www.ied.info/blog/1165/credit-default-swaps-derivatives-the-federal-reserve-henry-paulson-ben-bernanke-and-how-the-financial-crash-could-have-been-avoided

100,000 hairs per human head X 6 billion people = 600 trillion hairs

What does it mean?
:shrug:
We're all going bald, maybe?

[Skink]

1. Looks like a pattern.

:beer:

[valerief]

4. Like male pattern baldness. nt

[targetpractice]

2. Hair = New Global Currency?

There's an idea.

I read in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that the settlers from the Golgafrincham B Ark decided to use tree leaves as currency...

So, hair could work in this regard, too... because there is a lot of it.

[valerief]

3. I really don't want to go to the grocery store and buy bread with pubes, though. nt

[Lucky Luciano]

5. There is not even $600T of value in the world.

I hate when this number gets thrown around for shock value. The $600T is the NOTIONAL and quite different from the VALUE of the contracts which are dominated by various kinds of swaps - primarily interest rate swaps. Interest rate swaps with a notional of $100MM get traded all the time - and their value at inception....drum roll please.....

























A Big Fat ZERO!













Usually those interest rate swaps have on party paying a fixed rate every six months for five years and the other party pays a floating rate usually tied to LIBOR every six months. Pretty tough for these IR swaps to be worth as much as their notional!