Goldman Non-Prosecution: AG Eric Holder Has No Balls. The Dark Heart of the Libor Scandal. Though, for most, the London Inter-Bank Offer Rate (Libor) interest rate fixing scandal appears to be distant and far too complex to understand, its potential consequences may be as economically devastating as a world war.
The Libor is used to set payments on $800 trillion worth of financial instruments. It sets the prices that people and corporations pay for loans and receive for savings. Journalist Anthony Baxter: Donald Trump 'Ruthless One-Percenter Run Amok' Black Dossier: HSBC & Terrorist Finance: “The Notion of Any Dichotomy between the Global Criminal Economy and the ‘Legal’ One is Fantasy. It’s tough being the world’s second largest bank.
Ludicrous Times Op-Ed Forgets Entire Year of Wall Street History. The Mystery of Rising Housing Prices. Say Goodbye to Social Security. In a New York Times editorial (link) written in 1993 the late economist John Kenneth Galbraith made a point that seems to have been lost on subsequent generations—many in the economic elite benefit from the destitution of others.
Even more to the point, activist government could put the unemployed back to work tomorrow, but at a cost to the elite. By tying economic policies long known to work to competing economic interests, Dr. Galbraith explained the current conundrum. Economies in the West aren’t working because a small economic elite benefits from this state of affairs. With Barack Obama, of his own initiative, slated to begin cutting government expenditures in 2013 (should he be re-elected), a number of his liberal and progressive supporters have taken to granting that the Federal budget ‘crisis,’ to which he purports to be responding, is real. A Biotech Battle Royale. Corporation That Paid Nothing In Taxes For Four Years Tells Congress It Pays Too Much In Taxes.
Bill Moyers and Chris Hedges: How Whole Regions of America Have Been Destroyed in the Name of Quarterly Profits. July 21, 2012 | Like this article?
Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. Icelandic Anger Brings Debt Forgiveness in Best Recovery Story. Icelanders who pelted parliament with rocks in 2009 demanding their leaders and bankers answer for the country’s economic and financial collapse are reaping the benefits of their anger.
Since the end of 2008, the island’s banks have forgiven loans equivalent to 13 percent of gross domestic product, easing the debt burdens of more than a quarter of the population, according to a report published this month by the Icelandic Financial Services Association. Fake Crowdsourced Ad Campaign Celebrates Shell Oil. Human corpses harvested in multimillion-dollar trade. “Two ribs, two Achilles heels, two elbows, two eardrums, two teeth, and so on'' ... a relative holds a picture of Oleksandr Frolov, some of whose body parts were found during a raid by Ukrainian authorities.
ICIJ: Body Brokers Leave Trail Of Questions, Corruption. By Kate Willson, Vlad Lavrov, Martina Keller and Michael HudsonThis is the second installment in an International Consortium of Investigative Journalists series. In April 2003, Robert Ambrosino murdered his ex-fiancée -- a 22-year-old aspiring actress -- by shooting her in the face with a .45-caliber pistol. Then Ambrosino turned the gun around and killed himself. Soon after, Ambrosino's corpse entered the United States' vast tissue-donation system, his skin, bones and other body parts destined for use in the manufacture of cutting-edge medical products. But before they entered the system, Michael Mastromarino, owner of a New Jersey-based tissue recovery firm, needed to solve a couple of problems. ICIJ: Human Corpses Are Prize In Global Drive For Profits. By Kate Willson, Vlad Lavrov, Martina Keller, Thomas Maier and Gerard RyleThis is the first installment in an International Consortium of Investigative Journalists series.
On Feb. 24, Ukrainian authorities made an alarming discovery: bones and other human tissues crammed into coolers in a grimy white minibus. Investigators grew even more intrigued when they found, amid the body parts, envelopes stuffed with cash and autopsy results written in English. The Real Libor Scandal. According to news reports, UK banks fixed the London interbank borrowing rate (Libor) with the complicity of the Bank of England (UK central bank) at a low rate in order to obtain a cheap borrowing cost.
The way this scandal is playing out is that the banks benefitted from borrowing at these low rates. Whereas this is true, it also strikes us as simplistic and as a diversion from the deeper, darker scandal.Banks are not the only beneficiaries of lower Libor rates. Debtors (and investors) whose floating or variable rate loans are pegged in some way to Libor also benefit. One could argue that by fixing the rate low, the banks were cheating themselves out of interest income, because the effect of the low Libor rate is to lower the interest rate on customer loans, such as variable rate mortgages that banks possess in their portfolios.
But the banks did not fix the Libor rate with their customers in mind. Collapse. Wells Fargo To Pay $175 Million Settlement For Steering Qualified Minority Buyers To Subprime Mortgages. Libor Scandal Intensifies Spotlight on Bank Regulators. ReutersPaul Tucker, an official with the Bank of England, appeared before a British parliamentary committee on Monday. 10:04 a.m. | Updated As big banks face the fallout from a global investigation into interest rate manipulation, American and British lawmakers are scrutinizing regulators who failed to take action that might have prevented years of illegal activity.
Politicians in both London and Washington are questioning whether regulators allowed banks to report false rates in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis and afterward. On Monday, Congress stepped into the fray, requesting information about the role of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, according to people close to the matter. The Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday also announced it was looking into the issue. Libor Interest Rate Scandal: Crime of the Century. Forget Bernie Madoff and Enron’s Ken Lay—they were mere amateurs in financial crime.
The current Libor interest rate scandal, involving hundreds of trillions in international derivatives trade, shows how the really big boys play. And these guys will most likely not do the time because their kind rewrites the law before committing the crime. Barclays Bank chairman Marcus Agius, (L) chief executive Bob Diamond (C) and chief operating officer Jerry Del Missier. JPMorgan Told to Explain Withholding Energy-Probe E-Mails. Why is Nobody (in the US) Freaking Out About the LIBOR Banking Scandal? The LIBOR manipulation story has exploded into a major scandal overseas.
New Commercials For Old Milwaukee Beer Feature Group Of Friends Contemplating Suicide. CNBC Experts Say We’re All Slaves To A Global Government Run By Bankers. Coup of the Elites. Corporate Profits Just Hit An All-Time High, Wages Just Hit An All-Time Low. The Facebook IPO: Shareholders Weren't Invited to the Real Party. Gets “Wikileaks Treatment” As Wells Fargo Freezes, Closes Business Account : The Implode-o-Meter Blog. June 13th, 2012 For Immediate Release ML-Implode.com discovered yesterday (2012-06-12) in the course of its normal banking activities that Wells Fargo had frozen its bank account with no warning.
Upon inquiring at the local branch (which had no direct knowledge of the incident), it was discovered the account had been flagged “credit risk”, and slated to be immediately closed. Jon Stewart Knocks Senate Banking Committee for Fawning All Over Jamie Dimon. Explosive Leak: Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement Pushes Corporate Sovereignty Over Environmental Laws. Guns for buddies: US weapons sales surge overseas.
AHIP Gave $100 Million to US Chamber To Kill Health Insurance Reform. Senate Committee Asks World’s Largest Bank To Self-Regulate. During a U.S. Senate Banking Committee meeting last Wednesday, Tea Party favorite Sen. A Giant Among Giants - By Ken Silverstein. When Glencore, the world's biggest commodities brokerage firm, went public in May 2011, the initial public offering (IPO) on the London and Hong Kong stock exchanges made headlines for weeks in the Financial Times and the trade-industry press, which devoted endless columns to the company's astonishing valuation of nearly $60 billion -- higher than Boeing or Ford Motor Co.
The massive new wealth turned nearly 500 employees into overnight multimillionaires and made billionaires of at least five senior executives, including CEO Ivan Glasenberg. Twitter Knows When You Sleep, and More.