Discredit derivatives: Difference between revisions

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Barkley’s idea was simple: if it was okay to extract the crappy credit profile from a [[CDO squared|portfolio]] of [[mortgage|mortgages]] off and lay ''that'' off on someone with “sufficiently deep market expertise and advanced models to bear the risk indefinitely”,<ref>Yes, I know what you are thinking: a sleepy Landesbanken from Lower Saxony would be ''exactly'' such a someone, right?</ref> why not do the same thing with the unwanted ignominy of outrageous investments?  
Barkley’s idea was simple: if it was okay to extract the crappy credit profile from a [[CDO squared|portfolio]] of [[mortgage|mortgages]] off and lay ''that'' off on someone with “sufficiently deep market expertise and advanced models to bear the risk indefinitely”,<ref>Yes, I know what you are thinking: a sleepy Landesbanken from Lower Saxony would be ''exactly'' such a someone, right?</ref> why not do the same thing with the unwanted ignominy of outrageous investments?  


Barkley began to construct instruments — at first, simple [[put option]]s — laying off the shame on those who could most easily wear it; namely — and this was Barkley’s real genius — ''the very badly-run, environment-wrecking corporates that were polluting the hedge fund portfolios in the first place''. The [[hedge fund]] would write an [[at-the-money]] [[stigma put]] to, for example, the Golden Crown Palm Oil Company of Sudan Pty. Ltd. (and for which it would ask little by way of premium; after all, really, what did Golden Crown care? It was ripping up the Bandingilo national park already, so what is a little more remorse?), thus getting rid of the fund’s disgrace for investing in that very company.
Barkley began to construct instruments — at first, simple [[put option]]s — laying off the shame on those who could most easily wear it; namely — and this was Barkley’s real genius — ''the very badly-run, environment-wrecking corporates that were polluting the hedge fund portfolios in the first place''. The [[hedge fund]] would write an [[at-the-money]] [[stigma put]] to, for example, the Golden Crown Palm Oil Company of Sudan Pty. Ltd. (and for which it would ask little by way of premium; after all, really, what did Golden Crown care? It was ripping up the Bandingilo national park already, so what is a little more remorse?), thus getting rid of the fund’s disgrace for investing in ''that very company''.


Objections came soon enough that this was obviously circular, but Barkley swiftly pointed out that, well, so too was [[debt value adjustment]] hedging, and everyone seemed cool with ''that'' for a good few years, didn’t they?<ref>Indeed, it kept a phalanx of banks out of [[technical insolvency]] — and their [[DVA]] traders handsomely [[Compensation|remunerated]] — for a good three or four years after the worst excesses of the [[Global financial crisis|credit crunch]].</ref> Did it present any more moral hazard than in D&O liability insurance? Slowly, the product began to catch fire. “Soon it was blazing like the Amazon jungle!” Barkley would later fondly recall.
Objections came soon enough that this was obviously circular, but Barkley swiftly pointed out that, well, so too was [[debt value adjustment]] hedging, and everyone seemed cool with ''that'' for a good few years, didn’t they?<ref>Indeed, it kept a phalanx of banks out of [[technical insolvency]] — and their [[DVA]] traders handsomely [[Compensation|remunerated]] — for a good three or four years after the worst excesses of the [[Global financial crisis|credit crunch]].</ref> Did it present any more moral hazard than in D&O liability insurance?  
 
Slowly, the product began to catch on. “Before you knew it, it was blazing like the Amazon jungle!” Barkley would later fondly recall.
===Mature industry: [[discredit default swap]]s===
===Mature industry: [[discredit default swap]]s===
Eventually, though, people started to bridle again — I mean, could the Golden Crown Palm Oil Company of Sudan Pty Ltd really just take its ''own'' discredit back, and thereby exonerate the denizens of Mayfair of their [[ESG]] obligations for investing in it? — so Barkley refined the offering by combining it with another of his innovations: cross-political currency “[[discredit swap]]s” where, for example, a natural wilderness gas fracking conglomerate could swap its embarrassment at precipitating a series of minor earthquakes on the local Inuit people, with a pornographic film distributor's regret for generating artificial losses to gain tax relief for its celebrity investors. So Now Hackthorne Capital Advisors Master Fund III LLP<ref>I had seven goes on the [https://www.hedgefundnamegenerator.com/ hedge fund name generator]  before I came up with a fictional hedge fund name that wasn’t actually a real hedge fund name, by the way. Honestly, hedgies: what about some imagination?</ref> could lay off its ''porno-tax'' shame to Golden Crown, who had none — not being implicated in onanistic or fiscal wrongdoing — who would in turn swap out the porn discredit it had just assumed with Antwerp Fruity Motion Pictures B.V. who would, in return, deliver bank Golden Crown’s own environmental embarrassment risk, which Antwerp had in turn acquired by selling a put to Snowy Mountain Partners LLC, another [[hedge fund]] in the same pickle as Hackthorne, only long palm oil and not smut.  
Eventually, though, people started to bridle again — I mean, could a polluter really just take its ''own'' discredit back, and thereby exonerate British hedgies of their [[ESG]] obligations for investing in it?  
 
Barkley refined the offering by combining it with another of his innovations: cross-political currency “[[discredit swap]]s” where, for example, a natural wilderness gas fracking conglomerate could swap its embarrassment at precipitating a series of minor earthquakes on a local indigenous people, with a pornographic film distributor's regret for generating artificial losses to gain tax relief for its celebrity investors. For example, Hackthorne Capital Advisors Master Fund III LLP<ref>I had seven goes on the [https://www.hedgefundnamegenerator.com/ hedge fund name generator]  before I came up with a fictional hedge fund name that wasn’t actually a real hedge fund name, by the way. Honestly, hedgies: what about some imagination?</ref> could lay off its ''porno-tax'' shame to Golden Crown, who had none — not being implicated in onanistic or fiscal wrongdoing as such, just environmental degradation and Golden Crown would immediately swap out the porno discredit it had just assumed to Antwerp Fruity Motion Pictures B.V. whence it originated, and Antwerp would deliver back to Golden Crown its own environmental embarrassment, which Antwerp had acquired by selling a put to Snowy Mountain Partners LLC, another [[hedge fund]] in the same pickle as Hackthorne, only long palm oil and not smut.
 
In this way was the so-called “Discredit Default Swaps” market born.


Hope that’s all queer. Anyway, in this way was the so-called “Discredit Default Swaps” market born.
Hope that’s all clear.  


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