- The collective term for these rates is the London Interbank Offered Rate, known as Libor, but the use of this nomenclature sometimes hides the fact that there is a separate Libor daily for each of 10 currencies at 15 maturities, from overnight to 12 months, according to the British Bankers Association. The notional size of the derivatives involved is on the order of $360 trillion.
Barclays could not have manipulated those rates by themselves – and that is not what the C.F.T.C. found or the basis of the Barclays settlement. Rather, some Barclays employees colluded with people at other banks in a way that, over a period of years, moved Libor rates up and down, depending on what would favor the trading positions of the people and organizations involved.
Each Libor “panel” of banks involves seven to 18 banks. Participating banks submit the rate at which they can supposedly borrow at a particular maturity and in a specified currency, and an average is calculated (taking out high and low values). No one bank is likely to be able to move the calculated Libor rates by itself.
It's conceivable to me that a future social liberation will involve the replacement of these politically entrenched 'financial services' with smaller, more dynamic systems that better reflect and serve economic needs.
It doesn't need to diverge so much from capitalism as communism did. Capitalism is great, it just needs some more polishing. (And the polisher is not called free market).
The right is extreme, and the left is to the right of were Reagan was on many issues. >Capitalism is great, it just needs some more polishing. I've always thought so. I'm progressive, and it shocks me the distortions the Right make about the views of people like me when the word 'regulation' is even whispered. I think capitalism is the best system on Earth because it is the only one that takes into account human nature (greed). It just can't be completely unregulated because it actually isn't the most efficient at creating prosperity for the majority of people if left unchecked. Monopolies cannot be avoided in some markets due to the structural barriers to enter, giving the monopolistic leaders the ability to crush or buy off any newcomers that make the attempt. It's not rocket science. I also think that our nations utilities and infrastructure should be subject to scrutiny and regulation, along with sectors that have to ability to destroy the life savings of our citizens through fraudulent gambling (I'm looking at you Wall Street). But on the whole, the free market should be mostly free, and we don't need to have the state owning the means of production as the Socialism calls for (most Tea Partiers have zero idea what socialism is).
It seems that in some cases technology can offer more to us by fragmenting financial services. For example, there could be ways that people could loan to each other in P2P networks that could be more dynamic and have far less overhead than banks. But I suspect it can go much further than that. We might be better off creating economic alternatives to money itself. Rather than a place keeper for value, maybe we can exchange something that has different characteristics.
- maybe we can exchange something that has different characteristics.
It's basically digital karma. Sentiment replaces money.
This is yet another example of powerful wealthy criminal enterprises getting away with massive fraud. In the US, after the worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression due to financial fraud, not a single executive has gone to jail save one or two low level ones. Fraud that costs our citizens billions stacked on billions of dollars. It kills me the magnitude of the crimes the wealthy can get away with without punishment. Even settlements in court are small and just a cost of doing business when your business is fraud. Contrast that with what we do to petty thieves or people you smoke weed. We are fucked up. Why do we have a War on Drugs and not a War on Financial Services Fraud? Why aren't our prisons overflowing with old white men no longer able to use their Brooks Brothers charge because they are behind bars? We have some seriously screwed up priorities in this country.