hmmm, seems like you are talking about over-the-counter deals. Futures brokers don't "make" contracts. Futures are traded on exchanges such as the New York Mercantile Exchange. On such an exchange, the clearinghouse takes on both sides of every trade, the buyer to every seller and the seller to every buyer, so that the risk that your trading partner will default is lessened.

Certainly the subprime mess has nothing at all to do with futures.those were collateralized debt securities that had all sorts of bad home mortgages in them. they were traded between banks and hedge funds in the OTC market.