News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on For the Love of Money. Parent comment

Re:For the Love of Money by pmorici on Sunday January 19, 2014 @03:01PM (#7085727)
They had running water and other complex infrastructure in ancient Rome well before derivatives were invented I really doubt we'd be living in a barren wasteland w/o them.

There would certainly be an impact if all that stuff went away but it wouldn't be because of it's absence it would be because of the pain of unwinding it all.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:For the Love of Money by Tycho on Sunday January 19, 2014 @05:14PM (#7086274)
Not to nitpick, but I think they had derivatives before that.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:For the Love of Money by pmorici on Sunday January 19, 2014 @06:57PM (#7086682)
Not in the sense we are talking about them as they relate to financial markets. From what I've read they came about in the 1600's with the rise of the famous tulip bulb bubble.

http://husky1.stmarys.ca/~gye/derivativeshistory.pdf

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:For the Love of Money by wavefunction on Sunday January 19, 2014 @06:11PM (#7086508)
Asset derivatives before running water? Do you have a citation?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:For the Love of Money by Tycho on Sunday January 19, 2014 @07:09PM (#7086738)
Options in ancient Greece http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thales#Business

Forward contracts in Sumer http://www.realmarkits.com/derivatives/3.0history.php

[ Parent | on HN ]