DERIVATIVES MARKETS’ PAYMENT PRIORITIES IN BANKRUPTCY: Harvard Law School’s Mark Roe summarizes his new article in this blog post.  “Stanford Law Review recently published my article, The Derivatives Market’s Payment Priorities as Financial Crisis Accelerator, in which I analyze the Bankruptcy Code’s role in undermining the stability of systemically-vital financial institutions.” The key observation, I think, having finished the article last night, is the role provisions of the bankruptcy code play in making certain derivatives accelerants in spreading systemic risk, by promoting the derivatives-holders to the front of the pack in bankruptcy.  The Dodd-Franck bill is, well, a work in progress; Michael Lewis’s The Big Short is a pretty good place to begin on derivatives and the financial crisis.