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Robert Scheer: Crime of the Century
from truthdig:
Crime of the Century
Posted on Jul 6, 2012
By Robert Scheer
Forget Bernie Madoff and Enrons Ken Laythey 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.
Modern international bankers form a class of thieves the likes of which the world has never before seen. Or, indeed, imagined. The scandal over Liborshort for London interbank offered ratehas resulted in a huge fine for Barclays Bank and threatens to ensnare some of the worlds top financers. It reveals that behind the worlds financial edifice lies a reeking cesspool of unprecedented corruption. The modern-day robber barons pillage with a destructive abandon totally unfettered by law or conscience and on a scale that is almost impossible to comprehend.
How to explain a $450 million settlement for one bank whose defense, in a plea bargain worked out with regulators in London and Washington, is that every institution in their elite financial circle was doing it? Not just Barclays but JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and others are now being investigated on suspicion of manipulating the Libor rate, so critical to a $700 trillion derivatives market.
Caught as the proverbial deer in the headlights, Barclays Chairman Robert E. Diamond Jr. resigned this week and offered a plaintive defense to the British Parliament that he learned only recently that his bank was manipulating the index on which so large a part of international trade is based. That is plausible only if we assume he was paid $10 million a year to be deliberately ignorant. The Wall Street Journal had exposed this scandal fully four years ago but his bank continued to participate in it nonetheless. ...........(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/crime_of_the_century_20120706/
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Robert Scheer: Crime of the Century (Original Post)
marmar
Jul 2012
OP
All the big banks should be fined many billions of dollars, and their profits put to better use
leveymg
Jul 2012
#3
I had trouble believing a recent poll that showed Americans trusting banks more than unions.
libinnyandia
Jul 2012
#4
Teamster Jeff
(1,598 posts)2. Any credibility the current banking system had is shot n/t
leveymg
(36,418 posts)3. All the big banks should be fined many billions of dollars, and their profits put to better use
rebuilding western civilization. Then, there might be hope.
libinnyandia
(1,374 posts)4. I had trouble believing a recent poll that showed Americans trusting banks more than unions.
People are so ignorant!