It's funny what you get from the little bylines down at the end of a news story. Putting them together creates a truer picture than the one allowed past the paper's corporate sensors. lol.
I was over at Nancy's and came across this article which had this article linked to by the words Federal Deposit Insurance Commission.
You may have seen the headline without seeing the number behind it. This headline has the number.
FDIC To Cover Losses On $75 Trillion Bank of America Derivative Bets
Within that story is a link to Bloomberg which states:
Bank of America’s holding company — the parent of both the retail bank and the Merrill Lynch securities unit — held almost $75 trillion of derivatives at the end of June, according to data compiled by the OCC. About $53 trillion, or 71 percent, were within Bank of America NA, according to the data, which represent the notional values of the trades.
That compares with JPMorgan’s deposit-taking entity, JPMorgan Chase Bank NA, which contained 99 percent of the New York-based firm’s $79 trillion of notional derivatives, the OCC data show.
So unless you were putting numbers together, you are probably not aware that our two major banks, are $154 Trillion in the hole...
How much is that? A lot. THE ENTIRE GDP OF THE UNITED STATES IS $14.5 TRILLION DOLLARS. THAT MEANS IF EVERY DOLLAR AND CENT OF THE UNITED STATES ECONOMY WERE SPENT TO PAY OFF JUST THE DERIVITIVES THAT PHIL GRAMM DEREGULATED SINCE 2000, IT WOULD TAKE MORE THAN TEN YEARS.
Before you panic, consider this. These totals are stretched over time. That is the same ratio as someone making $50,000 who bought a new house whose total cost was $533,000...
Ok, NOW PANIC!!!!!