The Whale Trade fail shows that all banks are poised on the brink of disaster. When it happens, the government will pay, not the banks. So why shouldn’t Jamie Dimon’s operation try to make money betting with credit default swaps with someone else’s money?

A pox on every central bank, bank, insurance company, hedge fund and every individual player who is betting on Greece’s financial problems. I hope they all get burned.

The New York Times has a potentially explosive story today indicating Goldman Sach’s top executives personally oversaw the mortgage-securities trading unit that created the Abacaus deals and had decided to go short the market. But what did it tell shareholders?

Brooksley Born wants to know the effect of credit default swaps on the housing bubble and the Great Crash. Citibank representatives don’t think there was an effect. Yves Smith disagrees.