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Simple summaries are good. False and misleading bashing disguised as responsible journalism is downright dangerous.
This Salon piece dupes readers into thinking they're being given a useful (and humorous) overview of what's happening on Wall Street. In fact, this article only further obscures what really goes on in today's global markets.
The list of problems with this piece is long: the blunt and inaccurate analogy to betting on a game (in fact, derivatives create real risk transfer), the false accusation that the credit rating agencies are somehow cheating or "rigging" the real economy (referees make calls that bind the players and can determine the outcome of the game; the credit rating agencies merely estimate probability of loss), the facile use of "alchemy" to describe tranching (tranching neither attempts nor purports to transform high risk to low risk; the junior slices are riskier, the senior slices are less risky, and the average is the same as the unerlying pool), etc.
The trouble with today's markets is that the damage from one corner of the economy rapidly spreads throughout the system, causing many participants to feel the pain caused by the actions of a relative few. The great thing about today's markets is that the pain caused by that damage is spread out, diluted, and shared by many -- this makes it possible for the system to absorb shocks quickly and keep on moving. Thanks to the diffused nature of the exposure to subprime mortgage risk, any problems that flow from the subprime mortgage debacle and related liquidity crunch will be worked out more quickly than the problems caused by any past crisis. Mr. Leonard (the Salon author) said it best: "derivatives and other 'financial instruments' ... have become the lifeblood of markets everywhere".
I am disappointed that you have let Mr. Leonard drag Salon into the tabloid-like frenzy with a piece of writing that does nothing to illuminate Salon's readers and adds force to the wave of ignorance, misinformation, and anxiety that just might sweep us all onto the rocks if we're not careful. Next time Salon should select a financial reporter with enough knowledge of the subject matter to be informative, not just dangerous.
