Banks to Pension Funds - "F**k Off!"

Matt Cameron has an article over at Risk (paywall. sorry...) about a weird side-effect of Dodd-Frank, viz., the requirements that (most) derivatives get cleared over the counter, said side-effect being that Banks are not accepting Pension-funds as clients. I know, you're probably hopping w/ excitement about this - but bear with me it is kinda interesting and does have some pretty serious ramifications. To summarize • There is a lot of money in pension funds out there - around $10 trillion in the U.S . alone, and quite possibly double that worldwide . • In the U.S., pension funds are governed by ERISA , which has all sorts of fun rules involving what happens in case of bankruptcies (who gets what money, etc.) • Pension funds invest their money in all sorts of ways, everything from simple stuff - buying stock in company X - through Private Equity into Hedge Funds and finally at wacky complex derivatives, whatever. Mind you, this is worthy of a post all unto itself, but...