The amazing thing is the mendacity. Take the Greek complaint that while speculation has not caused the Greek debt problem, it aggravated it. The charge is that those who originated derivative contracts and sold them are now flipping to the long side and taking advantage of handsome interest rates on Greek bonds. There are charges of collusion and momentum plays in this market.

These charges are beaten back by people who point to a CDS index that shows the CDS market for Greece went from $20 billion to $80 billion in the last few months, and they explain that this $80 billion doesn't even cover 1/3rd of Greek debt, so that much of the debt is still uninsured.

But when you hear calls for transparency, for a clearing house to be developed so that these loans are not solely made in private, a hue and cry is hear. Why? Isn't the so-called CDS index that shows us how much has been bet on Greece, isn't it accurate? Why would you oppose something that effectively duplicates what this CDS index does?

The reason, I'm assuming, is that the CDS tracking may be tracking increases and volatility in the market, but it certainly isn't capturing the big picture as there are no regulations out there which force people to report their contracts to the indexes. There's a shadow market out there, so that any reporter who claims a negligible amount of insurance on Greek debt does not have the necessary information to actually make that claim.