Look at this guy, making a case to sweep LIBOR under the rug:
The LIBOR Scandal: Not that Big a Deal?
Paul Solman
The Business Desk, PBS.org
One of the biggest business scandals of 2012 was the the manipulation of LIBOR, the London Interbank Offering Rate, on which so many other interest rates depend. LIBOR is determined by the banks themselves and, it turns out, was rigged -- for years. Traders were in cahoots with "submitters" from the banks responsible for "reporting" the rates banks were offering to charge one another in the London market -- the "interbank offering rate." But the submitters were incentivized -- and only too happy, it seems -- to accommodate the traders by customizing their submissions for the profit of all.
The Economist published some particularly juicy emails from the ongoing investigation:
"One banker at UBS, in asking a broker to help manipulate submissions, promised ample recompense:
'I will f*ing do one humongous deal with you ... Like a 50,000 buck deal, whatever. I need you to keep it as low as possible ... if you do that ... I'll pay you, you know, 50,000 dollars, 100,000 dollars ... whatever you want ... I'm a man of my word.'
SNIP...
But Doug Dachille, our man in the pits (figuratively speaking), thinks it's easy to make something of the LIBOR scandal that it is not: a conspiracy that screwed the global economy. Doug was the head of proprietary trading at JP Morgan until the merger with Chase, and then co-head thereafter. He's been featured on this page before: here, here and here.
Here is his take on LIBOR:
"While everyone focuses on the market manipulation of LIBOR, for which it is unclear there was any material impact on the rate setting itself, or whether any institution was able to specifically profit, no one is focusing on the real market manipulation that is done knowingly to boost profits and enhance compensation -- mis-marking of trading and accrual positions...."
Doug went on to explain the issue of mis-marking -- a little wonky for this page, though if there's an upswell of requests, we'll be happy to publish the rest, with Doug's permission.
CONTINUED (A must read for those who want to document the problem with thinking one class is immune from criminality)...
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/businessdesk/2013/01/the-libor-scandal-not-that-big.html
Like, uh, Banned from Kos used to say: "Let us look forward."
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