is the derivatives stacked on top of derivatives, stacked on top of derivatives.

If you've ever read some of lostcoasttrader's posts about butterflys, synthetics, etc. you can see where a loose strand in any one area can bring the whole thing crashing down as unwinding or re-balancing must be done.

I'd be willing to bet that, similar to green traders straddling losing positions because they don't want to admit a loss, there is the same thing going on at the corporate level. That is, corporate traders may have huge losses hidden in all of this paperwork. I'd also bet that some of these derivatives are quite exotic with ideas, based on historical data, like balancing a position in Treasuries with an "offset" in, let's say, the Corn market.