After the storm

US public finance entities have piled into interest rate swaps. But the derivatives revolution has sparked controversy, and even prompted a fallout between leading trade groups and a major rating agency. By Navroz Patel

Louisiana's Superdome became a focal point for television news cameras last year during coverage of the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Katrina. Pictures showing the abject misery visited upon the people of Louisiana - tens of thousands of whom were forced to live in squalor at the stadium as they awaited rescue last August - made the Superdome emblematic of the inadequacy of the disaster relief effort. Now, as efforts to rebuild New Orleans gather pace, the stadium is once again at the centre