Just as cap-and-trade in permits exists primarily to thwart serious reduction of carbon emissions, contemporary "last resort" market policies that set up the state as dumping ground for financial detritus, only then to have it managed behind the scenes by private interests, mostly exist to thwart any serious intervention-cum-nationalization and subsequent writedown of insolvent firms in a crash. … Although there is no reliable gauge of the world trading volume of over-the-counter credit default swaps, the industry trade group provides data suggesting that gross exposure of such derivatives topped $5 trillion in December 2008, and was around $3 trillion in 2011.

Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis …, loc. 952