La dimensión real de la crisis económica

La explica muy bien John Robb en su blog, y da escalofrios imaginar lo que puede suceder si el castillo de naipes financiero cae, como ya sucedió en Islandia y empieza a suceder ahora en el Reino Unido. Copio:

BIGGER THAN A PRESIDENT

I'm not sure most people grasp the sheer scale of the current crisis. This may help.

First, there is the shadow banking system (see the estimate of its size below relative to other big things...). NOTE, estimates can be even much larger than this.

In short, it's the massive pile of derivatives accumulated over the past decades. It's also tightly coupled and extremely complex (worse, not understood). It isn't regulated, nor is it liquid enough to price (which is why global banks are still able to "act" like they are solvent).

This shadow banking system is in the process of melting down/popping/exploding.

Next, there is the global economy.

Finally, there is the US economy.

You can see why global banks are now trading at prices that anticipate insolvency and government bailout ( See this chart from JP Morgan for more). And why the UK looks like Iceland more each day.