Derivatives are the “meat and meat by-products” of the financial markets. They look, smell and taste just like regular securities, but almost no one understands why we need them in the first place. After all, what’s wrong with actual meat? Or to re-phrase the question: Is Spam really an advancement over ham? More importantly, can [...] “Net Sober” originally appeared in the Daily Reckoning . The Daily Reckoning, published by Agora Financial provides over 400,000 global readers economic news, market analysis, and contrarian investment ideas. Recently Agora Financial released a video titled " What is Fracking? ".