JP Morgan invented credit-default swaps to give Exxon credit line for Valdez liability

Credit-default swaps are widely seen as a major contributor to the recent financial meltdown. But the origin of CDS's with the Exxon Valdez oil disaster isn't as widely known.

The New Yorker has a long review of a couple of financial books, including Fool's Gold: How the Bold Dream of a Small Tribe at J.P. Morgan Was Corrupted by Wall Street Greed and Unleashed a Catastrophe.  It details the history of the CDS, an idea that came out of a June 1994 JP Morgan off-site in Boca Raton (where...