“Ordinarily, the financial risk in a market, and hence the risk to the economy at large, is limited because the assets traded are finite. There are only so many houses, mortgages, shares of stock, bushels of corn, [bars of silver], or barrels of oil in which to invest.
But a synthetic instrument has no real assets. It is simply a bet on the performance of the assets it references. That means the number of synthetic instruments is limitless, and so is the risk they present to the economy…
Increasingly, synthetics became bets made by people who had no interest in the referenced assets. Synthetics became the chips in a giant casino, one that created no economic growth even when it thrived, and then helped throttle the economy when the casino collapsed.”
US Congressman Carl Levin
Congressassman Carl Levin, the douchebag who sponsored the NDAA (the original and the 2015 reappropriation):
Carl Levin National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015 – Authorizes FY2015 appropriations for military activities of the Department of Defense (DOD), military construction, and for national security activities of the Department of Energy (DOE). Authorizes military personnel strengths for FY2015.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/2410