It was posted a few days ago that finance and banking used to be about 10% of GDP and in some places it has grown close to 40%. When you shuffle the same piece of paper around and eveyone wants their cut its bound to collapse in a terrible heap. Derivatives were classed as gambling until the clinton administration allowed it and shorting falls into the same category imo. Iceland is a good example of this stupidity. For a country of 300000 people that needs a $4 billion bail out, there is something seriously wrong with the system.