Chaos Theory for Dummies

I'm a big fan of the "Such-and-such-a-topic for Dummies" format. After all, we are too busy to learn everything, especially those subjects that encroach upon our shrinking daily allocation of spare time, much of which has already been appropriated by de facto necessities, such as sleeping, napping, and watching "Law & Order" re-runs.

The recent spate of intrusions by the mainstream media in the form of ever more alarming breaking-news alerts, concerning incomprehensible occurrences at some obscure address named "Wall Street", has prompted me to prepare a crash course (styled as an "X Theory for Dummies") in, for want of an suitably incomprehensible title, "Chaos Theory".

To wit, I spent a couple of precious hours of my spare time surfing the Web (i.e., "iGoogled stuff", a technical term I will discuss at a future date). In the process, it occurred to me that the best way to present the facts is to mimic mainstream media! I have, therefore, assembled a "Top10-like" list of factors potentially contributing to the chaos on Wall Street, and present them herewith for the readers to prioritize via a poll of opinions, of which there is no shortage.

Hence, "without further ado" (another technical expression I will investigate at some future time):

Contributing Factors to Chaos on Wall Street
[to be prioritized by readers]
• Subprime mortgage market collapse
• Credit rating cartel
• Mark to market fiasco
• Obama collects hundreds of millions in return for change
• Derivatives and regulation
• Oprah's unwillingness to be lender of last resort
• Repeal of Glass-Steagall [the Act, not the person(s)]
• Fannie Mae and the Vast Bipartisan Conspiracy
• Senator Dodd
• The other 99 Senators
• Hindsight regulation
• Modern financial systemic risk
• All of the above

I know, I know. My Top10 list has 13 entries. That's because I eliminated the 14th entry — "Shit happens".