LONDON -- Through the contrivance and cunning of stock jobbers there hath been brought in such a complication of knavery and cozenage, such a mystery of iniquity, and such an unintelligible jargon of terms to involve it in, as were never known in any other age or country. Jonathan Swift's eighteenth-century barb resonates in today's world of financial intermediation: now, as then, finance shrouds its complication of knavery and cozenage" in unintelligible jargon. As US President Barack Obama explained in a speech in April: Many practices were so opaque and complex that few within these companies - let alone those charged with oversight - were fully aware of the massive wagers being made.