Mr Chey has had previous scrapes, having been convicted of a billion-dollar accounting fraud in 2003.

ECONOMIST: The Korea discount: Minority report | The

At stake are trades in eurodollar futures--bets on short-term interest rates affecting American dollar deposits outside the U.S.--accounting for 53% of the Merc's overall volume.

FORBES: That Other Exchange

Even with Fannie and Freddie inflating the bubble and the Fed and the rest of the Bush Administration weakening the dollar, the crisis never would have become so unprecedentedly destructive but for a seemingly arcane accounting principle called mark-to-market, or fair value, accounting.

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