[jhkjurter]

I see. (I was being tongue-in-cheek).

Correct me if I am wrong but it sounds like you are saying the actual value, not the leveraged value, should be reported.

Well on a swap, there really is no leveraged value because the notional is never exchanged. You and I could take positions on a swap now, with a notional of any figure we choose regardless whether either of us has or requires to have that much capital. The contract value is the value likely to exchange hands over a period of time. It might even be zero.

On debt, it's the value at risk from originator to principle, not everyone in between, that should be counted in official statistics. When someone wants to make a headline, they'll aggregate all the debts and come up with whatever figure sounds awesome. $900 trillion... sounds like a lot. It is. It's BS.