RE: The Stock MarketI agree that the US allowed the derivative market to get out of hand, BUT, the rest of the world didn't want to be left behind in aquiring these highly leveraged instruments that were so profitable as long as real estate, comercial paper, etc. were going up If these investment houses couldn't figure out that this was just a paper game, well, suffer the consequences of your own greed. This whole financial crisis is a meltdown of the derivative market which stands at over 600 TRILLION. IMHO it can't be fixed without changing the whole financial system as we know it.