Modern financial derivatives all started with commodities, namely rice and grain. The earliest recorded financial derivative market I know of came in the early 1700s in imperial Japan at the Dojima Rice Exchange. Although the realm did use coins, they also used rice as another major form of indirect exchange. (This article explained why using rice was a horrible idea.) The samurai stole (or to be more polite, taxed) rice from their serfs, but due to a set of bad harvests and market manipulations by traders, they found their purchasing power to be very adversely effected. A funny way to think of it is that new armor & swords, and lovely geishas were too expensive in terms of rice. Our poor samurai were left scratching their helmets on what to do. FULL ARTICLE

It may seem like the FED is creating lots of money (and they are) but remember that $7.76 trillion, $8.5 trillion, WHATEVER the new number will be by the end of this week, pales in comparison to the amount of financial derivatives in existence, which per the BIS at last count (and just over-the-counter!) was $684 trillion.  I am not sure if I ever wrote this phrase in this column before, but I’ve always viewed the financial crisis as a “Triple-D” crisis.  Dollar.  Debt.  Derivatives.  FULL ARTICLE

What consumers need to spend is a solid inducement, one that coordinates financial responsibility with their material needs. And the retailers are there to provide it. Thus are prices being chopped from one end of the country to the other. Earrings that were $700 are now $250, purses that were $1000 are now $250, large-screen televisions that were $2000 are now $1,200, and suits that were $900 are going for $400. Deals are everywhere, from laptops to cell phones to cars. The street wisdom is that now is the time to buy. FULL ARTICLE