The big banks got into considerable trouble doing derivatives trades--especially the credit default swaps where AIG was the major counterparty and the taxpayers ended up bailing out the Big Banks like Goldman Sachs.

So surely one of the results of "financial reform" in the wake of the casino banking financial crisis would be utter and complete transparency about derivatives, correct?  One would think so.  But it may not be so.

For a detailed picture of the way the Big Banks have controlled derivatives trading in order to make it a lucrative noncompetitive market for them and a costly market for derivatives endusers, read the article in the Saturday New York times:  Louise Story, A Secretive Banking Elite Rules Trading in Derivatives, New York Times, Dec. 11, 2010.

As Story notes, there is an exclusive group of bankers that has a great deal of say about derivatives trading.  The theoretical purpose is to "safeguard the integrity" of the derivatives market.  The real purposes is to "defend[] the dominance of the big banks" which the banksters do by thwarting efforts to create transparent markets where end users get real information on prices and fees and comparable trades.

The CFTC chair wants to push for more transparency about the derivatives clearinghouses, which will have more power under the Dodd-Frank bill.  But the banks don't want transparency--in fact, the group of nine banksters that is the subject of the article meets monthly with the ICE Trust clearinghouse, and has enormous influence and power over them.

Here's an excerpt from the piece on the way the Big Banks control the derivatives market by keeping the facts about derivatives trades secret.

In the midst of the turmoil, regulators ordered banks to speed up plans — long in the making — to set up a clearinghouse to handle derivatives trading. The intent was to reduce risk and increase stability in the market.

Two established exchanges that trade commodities and futures, the InterContinentalExchange, or ICE, and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, set up clearinghouses, and, so did Nasdaq.

Each of these new clearinghouses had to persuade big banks to join their efforts, and they doled out membership on their risk committees, which is where trading rules are written, as an incentive.

Through representatives, these bankers declined to discuss the committee or the derivatives market. Some of the spokesmen noted that the bankers have expertise that helps the clearinghouse.

Many of these same people hold influential positions at other clearinghouses, or on committees at the powerful International Swaps and Derivatives Association, which helps govern the market.

Critics have called these banks the “derivatives dealers club,” and they warn that the club is unlikely to give up ground easily.

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For many, there is no central exchange, like the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq, where the prices of derivatives are listed. Instead, when a company or an investor wants to buy a derivative contract for, say, oil or wheat or securitized mortgages, an order is placed with a trader at a bank. The trader matches that order with someone selling the same type of derivative.

Banks explain that many derivatives trades have to work this way because they are often customized, unlike shares of stock. One share of Google is the same as any other. But the terms of an oil derivatives contract can vary greatly.

It would be like a real estate agent selling a house, but the buyer knowing only what he paid and the seller knowing only what he received. The agent would pocket the difference as his fee, rather than disclose it. Moreover, only the real estate agent — and neither buyer nor seller — would have easy access to the prices paid recently for other homes on the same block.