Bodies in the River

There's a well-known myth in India about bodies in the river.

Villagers notice a body floating by, and they take it out of the river and bury it.

Then more bodies float by, and the villagers take them out and bury them.

Soon, so many bodies are floating downriver that the village can't keep up. They run to the village elder to ask him how to fish all the bodies out.

The elder tells them to stop fishing out bodies, and instead tells them to walk upstream to find out why bodies are falling in the river in the first place. He tells them that unless they stop it, they won't solve the problem.

They do so, find out why people are dying and ending up in the river, and stop the whole mess.

Politicians are acting like the villagers. Their spending trillions in bailouts and gaming the markets is like trying to pull bodies out of the river and not being able to keep up.

Until we "walk upstream" and see what is causing the slaughter of one segment of our economy after another, and stop it, things will get worse.

So what's causing the financial mayhem? Derivatives - especially credit derivatives such as credit default swaps. No more half-hearted measures. Deal with them. Cancel all credit default swaps before the world is plunged into depression.