FinancialRx: Credit Default Swaps Now Total $283 Trillion: "Last week the International Swaps and Derivatives Association said that at the end of June, the outstanding nominal value of swaps and derivatives was $283.2 trillion. As the New York Times pointed out over the weekend, that's a lot of money, vastly superior to the combined gross domestic products of the U.S., European Union, Canada and China -- a paltry $34 trillion -- or the value of all U.S. homes, which is about the same amount. 'To be sure, notional value is an exaggerated term as it greatly overstates the amount at risk in many contracts,' the Times noted. 'But the growth rate is real, and in the fastest-growing area of swaps -- credit default swaps -- notional value is closer to the amount at risk, because such swaps promise to make up the losses if a borrower defaults on the notional amount.'"
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This is a link to a blog post. The chart that accompanies it will blow the mind of anybody who looks at it long enough to understand it. Then look at the date of the post: September 28, 2006.

And now we are reading about how the financial sector of the US economy is melting into a puddle of goo because of...credit default swaps.