The short answer is, I don't know. Nobody knows. The reason for that is, we don't have enough data on the particular exposures we need to measure to answer that question.

Finance and economic research has hit a wall. We can't answer any more questions by running another regression analysis. Now, we need to get inside the brain to understand why people make decisions.

Credit derivatives and hedge funds have grown fairly spectacularly over the last five years.

Credit derivatives and hedge funds have grown fairly spectacularly over the last five years,

The fact that hedge funds have become so important is really the flip side of problems that could be generated. If they ceased to function in the way they are designed, that would create a fair amount of systemic risk.

Just because we didn't see an event (after GM and Ford) is small comfort. There are large exposures out there we haven't seen yet. I'd say the jury is still out on whether the industry can withstand the shocks that may come out over the next few months.