''The $18 Trillion Threat Of The Unregulated Shadow Banking System''

its probably more than $18 trillion....maybe the author should read zerohedge.......

read more from forbes....

"You want to worry about money you can’t see– and don’t know where it is located?    Then, worry big-time  about some $5.8 trillion of the “shadow banking”  system that are in some kind of crazy-quilt daisy chain where they are pledged by some huge unregulated hedge fund or sovereign wealth fund, and then end up as collateral being used by yet another financial dealer. There’s no central collateral clearing desk or depositary– where all of these transactions can be observed. It means long term savings can be turned into short-term transactions that are part of the counter-party web of global financial markets.

If a hedge fund can use its Treasury bills to finance various transactions, which lead to related transactions,  how are we to monitor5 the use o the $5.8 trillion– much less the whole lot of $18 trillion in the system at the end of 2010?  You can be sure this IMF study won’t be the first investigation of this phenomenon."