"Our modern shadow banking system craftily dodges the reserve requirements of traditional [regulated] institutions and promotes a chain letter, pyramid scheme of leverage, based in many cases on no reserve cushion whatsoever. Financial derivatives of all descriptions are involved but credit default swaps (CDS) are perhaps the most egregious offenders... According to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), CDS totaling $43 trillion were outstanding at year end 2007, more than half the size of the entire asset base of the global banking system...

The withdrawal of deposits from our new age shadow banking system has frightening potential consequences because a thinly capitalized banking system is always at risk relative to its more conservative counterpart." -- Bill Gross, PIMCO Bonds

A "rogue trader" at Societe General makes the news over a 5 billion euro gamble on stock futures, yet who are the crafty dodgers responsible for setting up this massive global pyramid scheme which is ten thousand times larger? When a corporate bigwheel mentions "our New Age" in a financial article, that's a clue.