[variety]

Umm, for one thing, the description of the instruments as "derivatives" is not due to Kedrosky, but to Avi Levy, the author of the Bloomberg article he was quoting. You did see that he was quoting another article, didn't you?

Also, it's not a "scare word" in this context at all. It's a fairly neutral term, and an accurate enough description of what these investment firms are doing (even if they chose to use other words to market these instruments).

[roel_v]

He still was all too happy to adopt the term, and not make any reservations on its use, wasn't he?

Of course it's technically a neutral term. But in this context, it is a scare word. When you write a blog that seems to be a pop topic blog for a wide audience, in today's world 'derivative' is a scare word. The average news paper reader hadn't heard about 'derivatives' before 2008, and since then he heard about it every week, usually in the context of how much money they have cost some firm, how much money they have cost the tax payer, how much money they have cost pension funds, or how much money they have made for those greedy bankers in Wall Street, London, Frankfurt or wherever - or a combination thereof.

So yes, 'derivative' is a term with negative connotations to the wider public. It is one of the words that are now associated with irresponsible risk and money out of thin air. It's irrational to blame the use on the instrument, but hey, it's an irrational world out there.