After the crisis in 2008, many of us became aware of some language, a vocabulary we hadn't heard before—derivatives, credit default swaps, synthetic bets, this whole dark market that now involves, according to one academic, perhaps as much as $1 quadrillion. So what's $1 quadrillion look like? Well, take a look at these graphics. These are done by kokogiak.com. Here's what $1 trillion looks like if you put it into a queue next to the Empire State building or the Sears Tower. Okay, that's $1 trillion. Well, here's what $1 quadrillion would look like. Yeah. Enormous. So $1 quadrillion dollars—it boggles the mind. This means that it's—the size of the derivatives market is something like 20 times the value of all products produced on the planet.

Well, people say, well, if this is so big and have such enormous implications to the global economy, it should be regulated. And that's a subject of our interview today, 'cause there's a big battle going on about whether or not this market will be regulated, and if so, how.