Editing Openai/68ed2ed1-5644-8004-ba30-42213bf3dbfa (section)

==== 💣 3. Why it could still happen anyway ====

All those guardrails depend on a few assumptions that are fragile as hell:
* Assumption 1: Counterparties will honor margin calls instantly. → But in a true panic, everyone scrambles for cash at once. Margin calls go unmet, collateral dries up, and CCPs face the same liquidity squeeze as banks did in 2008.
* Assumption 2: CCPs are fail-safe. → They’re actually concentrated single points of failure now. If one major clearinghouse gets hit by a correlated default wave (say, multiple sovereign CDS failures), it could paralyze the system faster than LTCM ever could.
* Assumption 3: All derivative books are hedged and offset. → Hedged… until the hedge fails. In a tail event (mass bond selloff, commodity shock, cyberattack, etc.), correlations go to 1. Everything moves the same direction — against you.
* Assumption 4: Central banks can always backstop liquidity. → True in 2008 when rates were near zero and inflation was tame. In a high-inflation environment, central banks can’t flood the system with trillions without torching currencies. That limits their bailout firepower.

So yes — the plumbing has been reinforced, but the water pressure is now orders of magnitude higher.