ABSTRACT
Today's international financial markets constitute a pool of capital of almost unimaginable size. The offshore markets in which most international banking takes place hold almost $3 trillion. If one subtracts transactions among banks themselves, the market's net size is well over a trillion dollars. Even the lower figure is staggering: it is equal to the entire output of China's 1 billion people in four years. The market's trillion dollars could buy every manufacturing corporation in the United States, as well as the livestock, crops, buildings, and machinery on all of America's farms.
