The Doomsday Klein Bottle: Charting Who Owes What To Whom (Hint: Lots And Everyone)
Some version of the following BIS-sourced chart from the BBC appears every week somewhere, and by now the default Pavlovian reaction to seeing it should be to think of the Klein bottle. Yet this one may be the prettiest so far. In case anyone was still wondering what happens in a world in which every financial asset is someone else's liability, and that same liability is a third bank's asset (and so on), and where the amounts involved are in the tens of trillions, and when even the smallest debt haircut starts an avalanche of remarking to market, here is the explanation. Oh, and whatever you do, don't click on the US. Because the "US is fine."
Full interactive chart after the jump
