Rehypothecation

Me, 5 weeks postpartum (C-Section)

Rehypothocation

The practice that allows collateral posted by, say, a hedge fund to its prime broker to be used again as collateral by that prime broker for its own funding.

BANKERS TRUST

CoVar™

For less than a penny per kilowatt hour, CoVar™ would mitigate the moral hazard imposed by energy deregulation. This was the full value proposition of CoVar™ – a propagation of variance, covariance and rehypothecation. As a financial instrument, CoVar™ could finely tune the parameters of risk/return trade- offs to investors’ tastes. Conceived in 1998 under the auspices of Bankers Trust at 4 World Trade Center, this Y2K project set the tone for oil futures. At the time of this writing, a kilowatt hour in NYC is 56.5% more than the national average. Do you know what your reading is? (BTW, the capital “V” in the middle of “CoVar™” was for brand identity. It’s a meaningless word, like “covfefe” and “Kodak”. We “TM’d” it so people wouldn’t accuse us of making a typo. Thanks for noticing.)

The term “rehypothecation” was coined by bankers as a way to describe how blockchain worked before blockchain existed. Laypeople call this practice “robbing Peter to pay Paul”, which biblical scholars will tell you has significant learnings and outcomes (Acts 11:1-3). You don’t need a divinity degree or a Harvard MBA, however, to know that robbing Peter to pay Paul puts us all in a compromising position. Whether it’s the Bible, Bhagavad Gita, Talmud or Sharia law, we all have skin in the rehypothecation game. Bookies have been telling us all along how it was in the beginning.

Payback is a bitch.

Let there be light!