The biggest threat to the global economy?

[stahleyp]

What do you guys think the biggest threat would be to the global economy?

 

In a successor, I know Buffett was looking for someone who could handle things the world has never seen.

 

I was thinking about this and this is what I've come up with.

 

Obviously, there is a threat of biological or nuclear weapons, but this also scares me a bit. In the following interview, Byron Wien  brings up this point, "There is $178 trillion in financial instruments out there. Hedge funds accounted for $1.9 trillion at their peak"

 

http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2010/10/08/blackstones-byron-wien-on-the-next-george-soros/

 

Or this

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_(finance)

 

"According to the Bank for International Settlements, the total outstanding notional amount is $684 trillion (as of June 2008).[6] Of this total notional amount, 67% are interest rate contracts, 8% are credit default swaps (CDS), 9% are foreign exchange contracts, 2% are commodity contracts, 1% are equity contracts, and 12% are other."

 

If we say this last crisis was a $5 trillion problem ( I don't know if it was that high or not), there could be over 100x potential problem out there. Now, I don't think all of these contract will cause problems, I do think they could cause potential problems that the world's economies could not withstand.

 

Any thoughts?