I suppose we would all do well to better educate ourselves about how the worldwide financial crisis came about and what might be done about it. Actually, I do not know when I will get to take a close look at this material myself, but here are some links that may prove useful to interested readers.
It turns out that there is such a thing as the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA). Its homepage is here. The Association describes itself as representing “participants in the privately negotiated derivatives industry, [and] is the largest global financial trade association, by number of member firms.” As such, one might suspect that the Association might seek to promote the expanded use of derivatives — which may be what got us into this mess in the first place. Nevertheless, the IDSA website includes an FAQ document as well as a derivatives bibliography and glossary of terms; these are all accessible by clicking the “Education” link at the left of the home page.
A Wikipedia article on financial derivatives may be found here. It includes links to this article by Daniel Gross at Slate.com, as well as “A beginner’s guide to derivatives” from MoneyWeek, going back to 2006.
So much for how the mess came about. As for how to get out of it, one could do worse than to read this special report from the October 11 issue of the London Economist (subscription required). Probably biased in favor of “making markets work better and avoiding hasty reregulation,” but, for comprehensiveness, perhaps the best that one can do in a pinch.