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London Inter Bank Offered Rate Scandal


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Aye fuck all will happen. The arsehole politicians have already turned it into the usual childish "it happened when YOU were in charge" game, rather than actually saying anything worthwhile about it.

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As cross-party fury rained down on Barclays, David Cameron labelled the affair a “scandal” and “extremely serious”.

 

The prime minister said accountability should go all the way to the top of the bank. But asked earlier if Bob Diamond, chief executive, should resign, Mr Cameron said: “Let them [the management] answer those questions first.”

 

from the FT

 

what a spineless turd cameron is.

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Have to say, if this isn't fraud I'm not sure what is.

 

While Ed Miliband is a little premature demanding 'criminal prosecutions' (last time I checked we left that to the judiciary, not seat-warming politicians), surely, surely, there is a case here. For all we know, this action could actually have lost Barclays money- remember this guy was only covering the positions on his own desk, and not those of the wider bank. What is truly staggering- and shows just how failed the system was at this point- was that they were using monitored communications to discuss the fixing.

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The bigger issue here I would have thought will be the private claims that will come in for people over paying on their mortgages.

 

Not really. The only thing revealed to date has been Barclays deliberately pushing the rate down and we're not going to see mortgage holders given orders to cough up the difference!

 

Only a few mortgages are L+ and the margins so fine that I don't think the man in the street will be left out of pocket. The trading desks on the other side of Barclays' trades (who will have been running several billions £ of positions) will liklely have more of a problem with it.

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Not really. The only thing revealed to date has been Barclays deliberately pushing the rate down and we're not going to see mortgage holders given orders to cough up the difference!

 

Only a few mortgages are L+ and the margins so fine that I don't think the man in the street will be left out of pocket. The trading desks on the other side of Barclays' trades (who will have been running several billions £ of positions) will liklely have more of a problem with it.

The fines imposed by UK and US regulators, where is that money going? to the traders on the other side, or country coffers?

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The fines go to government- in the UK the fine reduces other levies across the industry (ie bad boys subsidise the good boys) though this is something that is now set to change and will in future go direct to HMG.

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Bob Diamond has finally given into the pressure and resigned.

The blokes a genius imo, should never have resigned. Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon one of my favs from the 70's.

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Another one bites the dust. The Royal Bank of Scotland is about to be fined $233 million (£150 million pounds) for its role in the Libor-rigging scandal. It joins Barclays as the first banks to walk the plank in what should be, but so far is not, the most sensational financial corruption story since the crash of 2008.

 

Many of the banks implicated in the Libor mess have also been targeted in the various municipal bond bid-rigging investigations, and RBS is no different – its subsidiary Natwest is also a defendant in the major civil lawsuit in the bid-rigging case. The cases aren't related, except in the sense that they both involve manipulation and anticompetitive cooperation. It's going to be harder and harder to make the case that the major banks do not routinely cooperate at the expense of the public when it serves their purposes to do so.

 

The news that RBS is involved comes with a perverse twist. This is from the Times UK:

The bank, which is 82 per cent owned by the taxpayer, is preparing for a political firestorm over the affair because it believes that it has no power to claw back bonuses from the traders responsible. Instead,
the expected fines would be borne by the shareholders — largely the Government.

 

Libor manipulation is a crime that already robs the public to create bonuses for bankers. By artificially lowering interest rates, the banks caused cities, towns, countries, and other public entities to receive smaller returns on their variable-rate investment holdings. If it turns out that taxpayers end up paying the fine for RBS's crime of robbing taxpayers, how perfect would that be?

 

Read more: http://www.rollingst...9#ixzz1zXsttduw

 

:jesuswept:

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Marcus Agius back as chairman one day after resigning as well. They really have no clue do they.

 

"As Chairman, I am the ultimate guardian of the bank's reputation. Accordingly, the buck stops with me and I must acknowledge responsibility by standing aside.

 

What's that? Bob is going? Oh, in that case forget everything I just said, it was nowt to do with me."

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Libor manipulation is a crime that already robs the public to create bonuses for bankers. By artificially lowering interest rates, the banks caused cities, towns, countries, and other public entities to receive smaller returns on their variable-rate investment holdings.

 

They should stick to gig reviews.

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They should stick to gig reviews.

 

It's from Matt Taibbi who's specialised in Wall Street for years and has been renowned for some of the best writing on the financial collapse.

 

He doesn't do Rizzle Kicks reviews.

 

I don't have a clue how right or wrong the statement quoted is like.

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My business was until recently funded by Barclays. the interest of which I paid them was calculated by Libor rates. I would dearly love it if some fucker would win a case against them for incorrect interest charged so I could follow suit :lol:

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My business was until recently funded by Barclays. the interest of which I paid them was calculated by Libor rates. I would dearly love it if some fucker would win a case against them for incorrect interest charged so I could follow suit :lol:

 

You fancy paying them the extra back? ;)

 

As for the article, it's entirely bollocks becuase LIBOR is reference rate for both lending and depositing. If the rate has been manipulated down, then banks will have lost millions in floating-rate interest payments.

 

That quote makes it sound like it is a rate a bank pays out to small depositors, but most term deposits the likes of you or me will place will be fixed rate or a tracker.

 

Yes, investors in a LIBOR-linked investment will have lost out, but this is only one side of the balance and one which hits other banks a thousand times harder than small investors.

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As for the article, it's entirely bollocks becuase LIBOR is reference rate for both lending and depositing. If the rate has been manipulated down, then banks will have lost millions in floating-rate interest payments.

 

That quote makes it sound like it is a rate a bank pays out to small depositors, but most term deposits the likes of you or me will place will be fixed rate or a tracker.

 

Yes, investors in a LIBOR-linked investment will have lost out, but this is only one side of the balance and one which hits other banks a thousand times harder than small investors.

 

Aren't all tax payers indirectly investors in a LIBOR-linked investment? From the quote you picked out...

 

 

"cities, towns, countries, and other public entities receive smaller returns on their variable-rate investment holdings."

 

He's not saying an individual small investor loses out, but that tax payers on the whole do as the major contributors to funding all of the above....and then they lose out again when RBS is 80% owned by the tax payer and foots the bill for the fine.

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Theres also the point that the traders are divided into "teams" - a team knows that if they make a profit (by fair means or foul) then they expect a bonus to reflect that - they have no concept of the division or the bank as a whole losing money.

 

Of course the team that is the "victim" of the swing/roundabout of the manipulation expect a bonus even if they don't make a profit on the basis that the bank as a whole did.

 

So even if the manipulation doesn't affect the bank as a whole's results by a significant amount, the individuals/teams involved make loads.

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I defer to Matt's last post.

 

What I'm interested in, as someone who doesn't have even a basic understanding of economics, is the mindset of the city--the amoral culture that seems to have developed there, and the fact that these people are able to get away with so much without consequence. It's a disgrace!

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