3:05 pm ET
Nov 4, 2013


Why Market Rigging Deserves Our Attention

    • How would you say the LIBOR market manipulation, for a basis point or two, stack up to the market rigging of the Federal Reserve Board?

    • I simply don’t believe it’s possible to rig LIBOR. I suppose you could try, but there are too many factors that go into the determination of LIBOR, or any interest rate, for that matter. Even if you could rig LIBOR, there is nothing that prevents borrowers and lenders from using some other benchmark. What these legal proceedings are about, I think, is that the government is running a big deficit, and they need an excuse to extract money from companies hey regulate in order to close the gap.

    • dave what if you do not know it is rigged? if several big lenders come together they can rig it and they did… what believe are you talking about?

    • The question should be whether the allegations are true or not, not the bank’s reputation. If they are true, which the settlements of several banks,strongly suggest, then the reputations of participating banks should rightfully suffer. I find it encouraging that reputations built on commercials and bogus public relations departments are being exposed for what they are. Advertising built reputations that bear little or no relation to actual conduct are rightfully trashed.

      Banks and other Wall Street institutions regularly commit sophisticated crimes, knowing to involve factors that will make prosecutions difficult. Typically, they distribute the losses from their crimes among many, and the make the misrepresentation central to the fraud one that is difficult to understand for a lay jury. I am reminded of one scheme which involved yield burning on municipal bonds. That they get away with this on such a wide scale is itself a crime. They should be grateful for the fact that they do are not typically prosecuted and that they continue to possess any reputation at all.

    • But, the hyper elite profit so much from rigging.

      Is that so wrong?

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