London Inter Bank Offered Rate Scandal

[ChezGiven 0]

Why restrict the viewfinder to the banks? Tobbacco, Food, Pharmaceuticals, Alcohol; all industries that conceal and manipulate information for profit and often at the expense of their customers.

 

I dont find myself morally outraged at the individual's behaviour in the bank, i'm more outraged by the political model that allows commercial pressure to come to bear on proposed regulation. We dont expect the agents in our system to always do the right thing, their likely inability to do so is the premise of market regulation. The machinery which has resisted proper regulation of the banks since 2008 is the real problem.

[Happy Face 29]

When you've spent your whole life working to get a job, I don't think it's part of your mindset to go against the grain and say "hang on, is this ethical?" when everybody around you is doing it. You ain't gonna throw away your lifes work to raise a moral objection.

 

The Milgram experiment showed how willing people are to do heinous things for no reward, because it was expected of them by others. What the bankers have done is much easier to fathom, people will follow the herd if the rest of the herd are making themselves rich and living the high life rather than actually harming people they can see in front of them.

 

I don't blame the banks one iota in this or anything going back to the crash and the activities that led to it. They're private companies in a cut throat world using every dirty trick to get to the top. It's down to the government to regulate it effectively.

 

Take a referee off the football pitch and tell the teams to play fair. See how long it remains honourable.

[Happy Face 29]

...or to put it another way, what Chez said.

[Kevin S. Assilleekunt 1]

When you've spent your whole life working to get a job, I don't think it's part of your mindset to go against the grain and say "hang on, is this ethical?" when everybody around you is doing it. You ain't gonna throw away your lifes work to raise a moral objection.

 

The Milgram experiment showed how willing people are to do heinous things for no reward, because it was expected of them by others. What the bankers have done is much easier to fathom, people will follow the herd if the rest of the herd are making themselves rich and living the high life rather than actually harming people they can see in front of them.

 

I don't blame the banks one iota in this or anything going back to the crash and the activities that led to it. They're private companies in a cut throat world using every dirty trick to get to the top. It's down to the government to regulate it effectively.

 

Take a referee off the football pitch and tell the teams to play fair. See how long it remains honourable.

 

That applied to about 60% of people in the experiment. You seem to have a negative view of human nature, which might be warranted--Holocaust anyone?

[Matt 0]

Why restrict the viewfinder to the banks? Tobbacco, Food, Pharmaceuticals, Alcohol; all industries that conceal and manipulate information for profit and often at the expense of their customers.

 

Fair play to GSK for some excellent timing!

[Happy Face 29]

That applied to about 60% of people in the experiment. You seem to have a negative view of human nature, which might be warranted--Holocaust anyone?

 

Exactly. Almost two thirds of people are willing to harm others they can see suffer the pain, for no reward, just because someone suggested they should.

 

With huge rewards for taking the same action as everyone else in your sphere of influence, that harms nobody specific directly, the percentage would be a lot higher, understandably.

 

That's not to say they shouldn't be punished mind. They should be hammered from top to bottom.

[NJS 4386]

Going back to Cameron's use of "entitlement" - the thing that gets me is the mindset where rewards are seen as inevitble and expected - I remember arguing with managers 3 years ago when the bank I worked for had lost €1.5bn in the crunch who reckoned they should still get their bonus as their business had made a profit - when I asked where the money should come from to pay said bonus they were almost stumped but still reckoned it was "morally" due. The concept of a big picture even as far as company level was completely lost on them.

[Kevin S. Assilleekunt 1]

I think a big problem is that the people who now occupy positions of influence in this country have gone through life having had almost no physical contact with 'normal' people--by that I mean people without great privilege. We have career polititians occupying the government who were in the Bullingdon club together; Dave's only foray into working life before office was with a media company, and the only people he surrounds himself with other than his Bullingdon buddies are amoral media-types like Rebecca Wade and Andy Coulson. If Dave had spent a year or so driving a van around the North-West of England, he would be much better prepared to serve the people in this country.

[Happy Face 29]

Always been true of the Tories....now also true of Labour. Following Blair & Campbell the Milibands, Balls, Burnham and that are all Oxbridge bell ends.

[Dr Gloom 21924]

the country's being run by a bunch of characters out of a richard curtis film.

 

you couldn't get a group of elitist, silver spooners with any less empathy for real people

[ChezGiven 0]

When you've spent your whole life working to get a job, I don't think it's part of your mindset to go against the grain and say "hang on, is this ethical?" when everybody around you is doing it. You ain't gonna throw away your lifes work to raise a moral objection.

 

The Milgram experiment showed how willing people are to do heinous things for no reward, because it was expected of them by others. What the bankers have done is much easier to fathom, people will follow the herd if the rest of the herd are making themselves rich and living the high life rather than actually harming people they can see in front of them.

 

I don't blame the banks one iota in this or anything going back to the crash and the activities that led to it. They're private companies in a cut throat world using every dirty trick to get to the top. It's down to the government to regulate it effectively.

 

Take a referee off the football pitch and tell the teams to play fair. See how long it remains honourable.

Even the referee is being bribed though.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jul/09/finance-industry-lobbying-budget-revealed

[Happy Face 29]

 

there's a major drama brewing over legal case in London tied to the Libor scandal.

 

Guardian Care Homes, a British "residential home care operator," is suing the British bank Barclays for over $100 million for allegedly selling the company interest rate swaps based on Libor, which numerous companies have now admitted to manipulating, in a series of high-profile settlements. The theory of the case is that if Libor was not a real number, and was being manipulated for years as numerous companies have admitted, then the Libor-based swaps banks sold to companies like Guardian Care are inherently unenforceable.

 

A ruling against the banks in this case, which goes to trial in April of next year in England, could have serious international ramifications. Suddenly, cities like Philadelphia and Houston, or financial companies like Charles Schwab, or a gazillion other buyers of Libor-based financial products might be able to walk away from their Libor-based contracts. Basically, every customer who's ever been sold a rotten swap product by a major financial company might now be able to get up from the table, extend two middle fingers squarely in the direction of Wall Street, and simply walk away from the deals.

 

Nobody is mincing words about what that might mean globally. From a Reuters article on the Guardian Care case:

 

"To unwind all Libor-linked derivative contracts would be financial Armageddon," said Abhishek Sachdev, managing director of Vedanta Hedging, which advises companies on interest rate hedging products.

 

Concern over all of this grew even hotter last week with the latest Libor settlement, in which yet another major bank, the Dutch powerhouse Rabobank, got caught monkeying with the London rate.

 

Rabobank paid over a billion in fines to American, British, Dutch and Japanese authorities and saw its professorial CEO, Piet Moerland, resign as a result of the probe. The investigation revealed the same disgusting stuff all of the other Libor probes had revealed – traders and various other mid-level bank sociopaths laughing and joking about rigging rates and screwing customers all over the world. From the WSJ:

 

In a July 2006 electronic chat, an unidentified Rabobank trader was informed about the bank's plans to set Libor "obscenely high" that day, according to an exchange cited by the Justice Department. The trader responded, "oh dear . . . my poor customers . . . . hehehe!!"

 

 

Read more:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/chase-isnt-the-only-bank-in-trouble-20131105

 

I said above bankers can't see the people they hurt, to read about them mocking their customers as they steal from them raises my ire towards them somewhat.

[Park Life 71]

Jail time is the only thing that might make them think twice. And I mean real jail time not one of those table tennis - big mugs of sugary tea and telly palaces.

[Happy Face 29]

From later in the article...

 

 

at the beginning of October it seemed like the banks might somehow escape the Libor mess with their necks intact.

 

Now, a month later, yet another bank has been forced to cough up a billion dollars for Libor manipulation, Fannie Mae has filed a major suit on the same grounds, and the Guardian Care Homes case is not only alive but looking like a threat to cancel billions of dollars' worth of Libor-related contracts. Not only that, many of those same banks are being sucked into what potentially is an even uglier scandal involving currency manipulation.

 

One gets the feeling that governments in all the major Western democracies would like to sweep these manipulation scandals under the rug. The only problem is that the scale of the misdeeds in these various markets is so enormous that even the most half-assed attempt at regulation will cause a million-car pileup.

 

There's simply no way to do a damage calculation that won't wipe out the entire finance sector when you're talking about pervasive, ongoing manipulation of $5-trillion-a-day markets. That's the problem – there's no way to do a slap on the wrist in these cases. If they're guilty, they're done.

 

[Park Life 71]

"Western democracies"...

[ChezGiven 0]

Jail time is the only thing that might make them think twice. And I mean real jail time not one of those table tennis - big mugs of sugary tea and telly palaces.

That you'd know all about after several indiscretions in your youth.

[Gemmill 44888]

This is another step on the road to revolution.

[Meenzer 15531]

"Abhishek Sachdev, managing director of Vedanta Hedging"

 

The Chris Morrisisation of the world continues unabated

[Park Life 71]

[Happy Face 29]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5lMJkw8Bv8

 

 

Full Story...

 

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/chases-twitter-gambit-devolves-into-all-time-pr-fiasco-20131115