Saturday, July 14, 2012

The Libor Scandal--A Phony Blowup?

If you happen to scan the financial headlines you find the media has come up with a new set of bank ogres with which to fill the news.

And the British and U.S. governments have found a way of reducing at least  a small part of their budget gaps by charging the main bank involved some hefty fines.

Libor, an interest-setting group of 18 banks, (officially known as London Interbank Offered Rate), provides a daily estimate by its banks of what it would cost them to borrow from others. The reference is in a number of currencies.

The four highest and four lowest estimates are excluded and what is included is averaged,

The charge now against the banks is that the Libor figure, which acts as a world standard, was purposely set too low. In other words,  a fraudulent conspiracy was set up by one or two banks,.

The problem with this accusation is that during the time frame of such scandal, (the 2008-09 financial meltdown),  government agencies themselves were possibly exerting pressure on the banks to keep Libor rates low.

Yet, these government overseers today are pointing fingers and leveling huge fines against the banks they closely regulated during the emergency. (See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments.)

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