Everything Is Rigged: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever

Rolling Stone ^ | 5-25-2013 | Matt Tabbai

[teeman8r]

and nothing will be done but a mock trial and slap on the wrists and laws to hide the corruption from the people...

we have seen the enemy, and they are us.

any old timers remember where that quote came from?

t

[Renfield]

Pogo?

[driftless2]

This is Matt Taibbi of Rollingstone. The odds of his being correct about anything concerning markets is about 3 billion to 1.

[tired&retired]

Excellent story. Worth the read. Here is an interesting statement from the story:

The bad news didn’t stop with swaps and interest rates. In March, it also came out that two regulators – the CFTC here in the U.S. and the Madrid-based International Organization of Securities Commissions – were spurred by the Libor revelations to investigate the possibility of collusive manipulation of gold and silver prices.

[wita]

I’m thinking Pogo without the question mark, and I’m old enough to know.

[tired&retired]

even better:

“But the biggest shock came out of a federal courtroom at the end of March – though if you follow these matters closely, it may not have been so shocking at all – when a landmark class-action civil lawsuit against the banks for Libor-related offenses was dismissed. In that case, a federal judge accepted the banker-defendants’ incredible argument: If cities and towns and other investors lost money because of Libor manipulation, that was their own fault for ever thinking the banks were competing in the first place.

“A farce,” was one antitrust lawyer’s response to the eyebrow-raising dismissal.”

[tired&retired]

This is really sad if true: Famously, one Barclays trader monkeyed with Libor submissions in exchange for a bottle of Bollinger champagne, but in some cases, it was even lamer than that. This is from an exchange between a trader and a Libor submitter at the Royal Bank of Scotland: SWISS FRANC TRADER: can u put 6m swiss libor in low pls?... PRIMARY SUBMITTER: Whats it worth SWSISS FRANC TRADER: ive got some sushi rolls from yesterday?... PRIMARY SUBMITTER: ok low 6m, just for u SWISS FRANC TRADER: wooooooohooooooo. . . thatd be awesome Screwing around with world interest rates that affect billions of people in exchange for day-old sushi – it's hard to imagine an image that better captures the moral insanity of the modern financial-services sector.

[VRW Conspirator]

Shakespeare got it wrong: ...first, kill all the bankers...

[wita]

“This is Matt Taibbi of Rollingstone. The odds of his being correct about anything concerning markets is about 3 billion to 1.”

That may be, but anyone with half a brain knows this worldwide low interest rate scam, is just that, a scam and it isn’t engineered by millions of workers, it is engineered by banks, large banks, banks in the pocket of the US central bank “the fed”. If interest rates were allowed to rise as they should, the US along with every other western nation would be in far more financial trouble than they are.

[nathanbedford]

Have a caution.

After we are finished discounting this article because of the source (Rolling Stone) we should consider that much of this is not new, we have all been aware of the massive danger presented by derivatives for some time now. What is relatively new are the allegations of conspiracy.

We should consider why this article is being printed, undoubtedly to justify government control of these markets. Clearly, the matter must be investigated but to hand over control of literally hundreds of trillions of dollar market to the likes of Barack Obama is insane. We have seen what the Democrats do when they have a chance, we need only say, "Dodd-Frank."

I would rather have the chicanery of an Arab bazaar controlling the market instead of Barack Obama. Aladdin's 40 thieves at least are motivated by greed while Obama is motivated by far more sinister motive.

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

The public education system has been rigged for YEARS and the end result is successful. The general public is so ignorant and brainwashed, most don't know what is going on and blissfully don't care.

For a Navy lieutenant and former officer (Chris Dorner) to go beserk and kill only law enforcement personnel over grievances knowing full well the consequences tells us something is VERY, VERY wrong with the LAPD and more than likely with every major police department (and many smaller ones) in the United States. However, the DOJ does NOTHING to look into the problem. All the news about that just died. A couple of whack jobs blow people up in Boston and the entire city, mostly unarmed, is shut down. What would happen if a REAL team of guys instead of wannabees wanted to cause problems across the nation? The entire economy would come to a standstill.

The markets are completely rigged. As someone so aptly posted here, there is a "total disconnect from reality".

Gold and silver prices are completely manipulated.

Gun and ammunition markets are being manipulated to enrich the producers of same and fit the agenda of those who would disarm and enslave us. Suddenly, criminals aren't the issue, law-abiding citizens who buy guns and ammo are.

We do not live in a representative democracy at all and haven't for years. It has been for years an oligarchy whose members are yet to be identified. By the actions of certain members of Congress lately, it's obvious party has nothing to do with decisions or philosophy of governing at all.

The media, which should be looking in to some of this only reports what those in power want it to report. Most all who deviate from the approved line face persecution or perhaps other consequences.

Most organized religion is a total manipulation to serve the interests of the people who run those religions. The truth has been manipulated and turned into a lie where homosexuality and abortion are acceptable, and evil people are the figureheads of religious groups. A few small churches still exist with members trying to follow the Bible, but very few. Almost all morality has been thrown out the window with business opposing homosexuality marked for destruction by the powers that be.

The Bible so clearly warns nations and people about rejecting God, but as usual, almost no one pays heed. The hand is definitely writing a message on the wall...

Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin

[driftless2]

I’ll believe it when it comes from a reputable source. Taibbi is definitely not reputable. Think Noam Chomsky or Howard Zinn.

[babble-on]

They actually did do this. Amoral twerps, every last one of them, and someone should have called out the LIBOR system for a sham years ago. I had no idea that very little money if any was actually changing hands in those “fixings” (a term that takes on a double meaning now in hindsight, as in “the fix is in”)

ONE THING TO REMEMBER THOUGH!!! They were always putting in LOW prices, so for the homeowners and other borrowers with LIBOR-linked liabilities, these actions BENEFITED THEM and LOWERED the rates they would pay on those days. The losers were bondholders with LIBOR-linked assets.

[tired&retired]

“The idea that prices in a $379 trillion market could be dependent on a desk of about 20 guys in New Jersey should tell you a lot about the absurdity of our financial infrastructure. The whole thing, in fact, has a darkly comic element to it. “It’s almost hilarious in the irony,” says David Frenk, director of research for Better Markets, a financial-reform advocacy group, “that they called it ISDAfix.””

[CommieCutter]

He’s a total tool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMEILpLmIrs

He’s such a joke.

[tired&retired]

“In all the over-the-counter markets, you don’t really have pricing except by a bunch of guys getting together,” Masters notes glumly.

That includes the markets for gold (where prices are set by five banks in a Libor-ish teleconferencing process that, ironically, was created in part by N M Rothschild & Sons) and silver (whose price is set by just three banks), as well as benchmark rates in numerous other commodities – jet fuel, diesel, electric power, coal, you name it. The problem in each of these markets is the same: We all have to rely upon the honesty of companies like Barclays (already caught and fined $453 million for rigging Libor) or JPMorgan Chase (paid a $228 million settlement for rigging municipal-bond auctions) or UBS (fined a collective $1.66 billion for both muni-bond rigging and Libor manipulation) to faithfully report the real prices of things like interest rates, swaps, currencies and commodities.”

This stuff should be headlines in all the major newspapers, not just in the Rolling Stone!

[Ben Ficklin]

It only takes about 30 seconds to find similar stories at Bloomburg and the Telegraph

[mitch5501]

"The hand is definitely writing a message on the wall..."

Indeed and there will no doubt be many joints of men's loins loosed and knees smiting one another to accompany it.

[blueunicorn6]

Read the whole article. The poor Democrat-controlled cities and states have been swindled by big fat cat bankers! The Democrat-controlled big cities are broke because of the Republicans! Detroit is screwed up because of Bush! The Democrat mayors and city councils, who have nothing but love for their citizens, were really trying to do the best thing. It was the evil bankers that forced them to be stupid, greedy and criminal. What a bunch of bulls**t.