The British, at Least, Are Getting Tough (Barclays rigging of LIBOR)

THE unfolding story of how Barclays — and, in all likelihood, other big banks — rigged interest rates is full of telling tidbits about the way Wall Street works. It also represents yet another teachable moment.

By now the world knows that Barclays manipulated the most widely used benchmark rate, the London interbank offered rate. But Barclays is just one member of the cozy club that sets the Libor, which is supposed to be based on the average rate at which large banks can borrow money overnight. It’s not based on actual transactions, however — and that leaves room for mischief.

And mischief there was, according to e-mails and other documents that Barclays has turned over to regulators in the United States and Britain. The upshot: traders colluded by posting rates that either helped their bets in the markets or their bank’s perceived financial strength during the harrowing days of 2008.

Manipulating the Libor is a big deal because it affects the cost of money for almost everyone. The Libor is used to set rates on mortgages, credit cards and all manner of loans, personal and commercial. The amount of money affected by the phony rates is at least $500 trillion, British regulators have estimated.

Barclays is not the only bank under investigation for rigging the Libor. It was simply the first to own up to the behavior and settle with regulators, paying $450 million. Other banks will almost certainly follow, and the documents bound to bubble up in those cases will surely prove fascinating.

One of the most revealing exchanges in the Barclays documents came when a bank official tried to describe why Barclays’s improper postings were not as problematic as those of other banks. “We’re clean but we’re dirty-clean, rather than clean-clean,” an executive said in a phone...

How much do you want to bet NO ONE goes to jail? I’ve caught flak before and have been call a communist and worse for saying this, but it won’t stop me from repeating it! The corner three card Monte dealer is more honest than most of the ‘Too Big to Fail’ banks and investment houses. And face it the Monte dealer who ‘scams’ a few hundred is a thousand times more likely to go to jail that the ‘banksters’ that are stealing millions.

There is a war on the free markets and it’s not just Obama, OWS, Big Labor and so forth, but Big banks and brokerage house are just as much at war. They repeatedly get caught steal millions and billions and yet no one ever goes to jail. Tell me what is learned if you cheat, rob, defraud a billion dollars and you get fined a million? You learn that the cost of stealing a billion dollars is 1 million, when you should be learning that the cost of stealing is jail! A million on a billion? Hell you just write it off as the cost of doing business.

And no we don’t need any more laws we just need the laws that are in place now enforced and start sending people to jail and I ain’t talking ‘Club FED’ style prisons I’m talking the same prison the liquor store robber and the car jackers go to.

“How much do you want to bet NO ONE goes to jail? I’ve caught flak before and have been call a communist and worse for saying this, but it won’t stop me from repeating it! The corner three card Monte dealer is more honest than most of the ‘Too Big to Fail’ banks and investment houses. And face it the Monte dealer who ‘scams’ a few hundred is a thousand times more likely to go to jail that the ‘banksters’ that are stealing millions.

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I am in complete agreement with you.

Thanks neverdem; this is a media shill working on behalf of the continental EU.

David Cameron faces EU vote call [December 11, 2011]
Last evening in German Vision Prevails as Leaders Agree on Fiscal Pact the New York Times portrayed the UK as the "big loser", stating Cameron made a "poor gamble".