And as anyone who is an actual trader with actual knowledge of markets will point...there is NO difference between them..
There are no more free markets left. They should just shut down the entire market place while there at it.
Interest rate swaps are very useful to corporations and are widely used. Hedging interest rate risk is quite a big deal for many companies. What is there not to like about them?
there have been some occassions when third world countries have used interest rate swaps and it ended poorly for them. i think the idea was to provide a risk free stream of cash to the third world country in exchange for the higher return and risky cash flow of the third world country. it didn't end as well as anticipated. neither cash stream acted as was predicted and the third world country lost out. i can't remeber the details i read an article a couple of years ago. i will try to look it up.
That's the plan. Have you seen the SEC's new plans to stop trading (via circuit breakers) every time the market dips? Note: there are no circuit breakers on the way up. Boom and bust, baby! The capital markets were as close as we came to a free market but, the SEC always made sure we didn't really have a free market. RIP.