Now that we know what one trillion dollars look like, we can picture the derivatives exposure [ht: sg] of a bank like JP Morgan chase: $70.151 trillion.*
That’s the nominal exposure. What we don’t know is (a) what kind of exposure each bank has with respect to the exposure of other banks or (b) how much insurance they have taken out on those derivatives. But we do know we’ve been there before, in the run-up to the global financial crisis of 2007-08. And the derivatives market is no more regulated now than it was then.
* That’s roughly the size of the gross world product in 2011. The $1 trillion dollar towers are double-stacked at 930 feet (or 248 meters).
