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THE LIBOR LABYRINTH

8/9/2012

 
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The LIBOR Labyrinth
    Banking has always attracted leeches eager to sink their suckers into the economy. After the crash of 1929, FDR sent a few to Sing Sing. But today they get away with bloodsucking because all that happens are fines—the cost of doing business. G.W. Bush-era de-regulations encouraged collateralized debt obligations, credit default swaps, and luring of people into buying homes they could not afford, then foreclosing, money made on every transaction. The latest scandal is an American branch of British Standard Bank money-laundering for Iran.  Change will come only when individual bankers, the guys who push the buttons, go to jail.
    Barack Obama would love to put them there, but Congress won’t let him because they intend to keep the scandals going so they can pin the blame on him. As for Mitt Romney and Bain Capital, in his ten years of withheld tax returns, what odds that he’s done deals as rotten? You pick ‘em.
    Now there is Libor, the London Interbank Offered Rate, interest banks charge each other for short term loans. I looked on the Internet:
    Investopedia - The LIBOR is the world’s most widely used benchmark for short-term interest rates...  the rate at which the world’s most preferred borrowers are able to borrow money.
    USA Today - If Libor was artificially high when you took out a loan, then you paid more on the loan than you should have.... The city of Baltimore is suing large banks involved in setting Libor, including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Barclays, Citibank and Deutsche Bank.    
    Live Trading News - Your mortgage and car loan are directly influenced by it. The Libor is... the heartbeat of economic activity.  Our global financial system is dangerously close to losing what little trust and integrity it has left. If integrity is lost, investors will hit the door as they did in 2008 and another crisis intervention will quickly be at our doorstep.    
    Huffington Post - If the banks being polled feel confident... they report a low number, because... their cost of borrowing would be low. If member banks feel a low degree of confidence... they report a higher interest rate... affecting the interest rate on financial products around the globe.
    Counterpunch - “The Libor scandal reveals that the ‘invisible hand’ Adam Smith spoke of...  has been transformed into the trained hand of a swindler...  banks were rigging the Libor since 2005 to make the most profit from their bets on derivatives.
    The banking industry has become a sewer and needs a good mucking out. That’s why it is frantically trying to buy votes for Romney and mob, knowing they are in on the scam and will keep it going for at least another four years.

CH
8/9/2012 08:21:28 pm

Alternet had a good article related to this: http://www.alternet.org/time-rebel-5-ways-we-can-break-big-banks-death-grip-economy?akid=9187.1085969.0H2UfE&rd=1&src=newsletter689711&t=1


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    Author (Yuma, AZ, 1944)

    Being 90 years in this world,  with great kids,  great grandkids, great wives (two, one at a time) and great memories, I wonder why some people seem to have stopped loving the U.S.A.? I will wonder in print right here. If you wonder too, or can provide some answers, please comment.
                                   Stuart Hodes

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           With my friend, Nero.
                   April, 2012.
        Photo by Ray Madrigal

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