Barclays last week agreed to pay $453 million to settle U.S. and British authorities' allegations that the British bank tried to manipulate the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, which is the benchmark for interest rates on trillions of dollars of loans to individuals and businesses around the world. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303684004577507042740592120.html
It's a criminal fraud empire. The entire banking and monetary system is a Ponzi scheme, a fraud, daylight robbery. Created and installed to transfer wealth from the masses to the elite few. Anyone who takes the time to understand a few concepts, noticeably: Fractional reserve, money creation, monetary policy and the roles f a central bank will understand that it is essentially a form of modern day slavery. Personally I think problems that arise from the gambling or trading sector of banking, such as Credit Default Swaps and the whole sub-prime mortgage issue, are simply born out of an immoral and corrupt overall banking system. For me the root cause of the problem needs to be abolished. And that means abolishing privately controlled central banks that create money out of thin air, loan it to government at INTEREST. And government collects hard working peoples money in the form of taxes to pay the interest on the debt to the banks. Not to mention the hidden tax that is inflation making our money worth less and less each time a central bank magically types new fake money into existence. Bob Diamond has been questioned in the inquiry, and as with R.Murdoch as soon as they sit down to be questioned, amnesia kicks in. They know not who they are, where they are or what happened, they have no clue how it happened, they never do. Because they are stealing from the apathetic, medicated, Stockholm syndrome affected, mass deluded, public.
Jamie Dimon, Goldman Sachs and now Barclays.. These efforts cover up the real issue and continue to detract attention from the Federal Reserves complicit role in this whole financial system.
It's times like these where I wish we extended the death penalty to white collar crime. If Wall Street criminals had to worry about the electric chair, they'd probably try fewer scams.
The British police's Serious Fraud Office have opened a criminal investigation into the thieving scum whom we bailed out and who continue to fleece the taxpayer. Heads should roll. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18742140
Hingin's too good for them. Get in there, SOCA. As if it's not enough taking the bailout intended to allow them to continue to lend and keep the economy afloat, then ceasing to lend. Now this hits the headlines. And Barclays I hear is the tip of the iceberg. They were said to have been the most cooperative. Quick way to pay off the national debt: attack these animals where it hurts and take back some of what they steal.
I think Investment Bankers perform a valuable role in oiling the wheels of capitalism. I think the way they and their companies are rewarded are ridiculous. But most of them are very smart, add value and contribute towards economic growth. Of course if you oppose regulation (as the Right do) then you are always going to have problems. The real animosity towards bankers does reflect some real problems with the system, but mostly it reflects ignorance, a hostility to capitalism per se, which depends on bank finance to work efficiently, jealousy and envy, and anti-globalization. It's a lynch mob in other words who are personalizing issues they have with capitalism to feed a populist thirst for someone to BLAME.
