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Special Report
Will the LIBOR Scandal Help Re-Elect Obama?
It could also give regulators even more power to misuse.
(Page 2 of 2)
But once he got into the Obama Cabinet he signed on to the President’s policy of trying to spark economic growth through massive injections of capital and artificially lower interest rates.
So before the central bankers start to dismantle the admittedly flawed LIBOR system, they should address the more pressing problem of ensuring that government regulators who already have wide oversight over the international banking marketplace do their jobs properly with the rules they have before any more powers are handed over to them.
However, it is more likely that will prove too difficult so another round of rule making and power grabbing is in the works. It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good.
About the Author
James Srodes, an author and broadcaster, is a former Washington bureau chief for Forbes and Financial Worldmagazines. His latest book, On Dupont Circle: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and the Progressives Who Shaped Our World, is being published next week. His email address is srodesnews@msn.com.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (17) | Leave a comment
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R Martin| 7.30.12 @ 8:01AM
What we know about the Libor kerfuffle: Barclays appears to have falsely reported rates to Thomson Reuters, the entity in London which calculates and distributes the benchmark Libor rates daily. The calculation is an averaging process which eliminates the highest and lowest quartiles of reported rates and averages the ones in the middle.
What we don’t know about the Libor kerfuffle: How one bank (or even several in collusion) could actually affect the final setting in any significant way with a false report. A report which is off the market is going to be discarded and not used in the setting. But more important we have not heard any quantification of the “problem”. To what extent have rates actually been moved by false reports? Numbers, let’s have the numbers.
This is starting to look a lot like Valerie Plame II, a non event blown out of proportion by a rapacious media. And yes, it will certainly be used to demagogue the banks and attack Romney.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 7.30.12 @ 8:22AM
"that only government run by dispassionate experts can provide the policy-driven programs that will create jobs and restore prosperity..."
After more than 30 years in government service, I've met a number of folks who were dispassionate, and some who were experts, many who were neither, but very few who were both.
TLP| 7.30.12 @ 8:29AM
First of all.....We don't have a Free Market Capital Markets. Last I looked, it's Regulated out the ass. Also, last I looked, little Timmy Tax Cheat knew all about this, and never did, or said, a Damn thing.
I fail to see why anyone who can't get a Job, Pay for his Home, Feed his Children, Send his Kids to College, Buy a New Vehicle, or Take a Vacation, gives a Sh*t about any of this.
Wall Street is a DEMOCRAT Den of Thieves. Morgan Stanley is a Proving Ground for Future, and Former Democrat Treasury Secretaries.
I look at that list of Scumbag Banks, and all I see are Big Democrat Contributors. Why, they're even having their Convention at BANK of AMERICA FIELD. Coincidence?
I don't think so.
Besides. Last I looked, again, His Majesty - The Muslim - had John MFing Global Corzine on his Payroll, Bundling Money, instead of Rotting in a Jail Cell, until he comes up with the $1.6 Billion in Investor's Money that he "Lost".
Capiche?
He can try'n use it, if he wants it to come right back at him at twice the speed, like everything else he's thrown up against the wall.
Then, again...............
When ya got Nuthin?
Ya got Nuthin ta lose.
Bob K| 7.30.12 @ 9:38AM
The great majority of the electorate are not paying attention to LIBOR. Most don't know what it is and do not care.
Obama has till November to turn this economy around or he is toast.
Cobalt| 7.30.12 @ 10:04AM
LIBOR is too complex an issue for the American electorate to understand.
The news media does not have enough time left before the election, to try to hang LIBOR around Romney's neck.
Houdini| 7.30.12 @ 10:45AM
Let me get this straight, the scandal is about Barclay's conspiring to keep interest rates artificially LOW, and that voters will demand more regulation because "turbo tax Tim" thinks it's a good idea? I can't wait to see the folks out in the street demanding higher interest rates and insisting that the credit card companies back charge them for what they believe should have been paid all along. The establishment ninnies keep looking for the "glass half empty" solutions that have worked so well since Reagan left office. God help us till we are able to clear out these idiots.
loulou| 7.30.12 @ 11:54AM
Tax Cheat Geithner needs to pay his back taxes and serve his jail time--then we'll talk about his good ideas.
TLP| 7.30.12 @ 6:24PM
He KNEW ABOUT THIS, loulou, and he said NOTHING.
Remember that.
Libertyinfinite| 7.30.12 @ 12:08PM
The short answer is yes. & what is helping in Washington State to re-elect obama & democrats, the government is now giving welfare recipients pot. All of the help democrats are, huh. This ship is going to sink. No one is driving it. In a nation of self government, if the people don't lead, the government does everything that it is doing now.
This country won't last much longer with false hopes like obama & romney. We the people are killing ourselves, as a nation.
Houdini| 7.30.12 @ 1:23PM
Can you trade the pot for Single Malt?
Mike Daly | 7.30.12 @ 1:19PM
No way. People have seen up close how Obama's meddling in the economy has been a spectacular failure, plus Romney is far more than just someone who worked at Bain Capital - that attack by Obama has been a bust.
Marie| 7.30.12 @ 1:42PM
Obama voters don't have any idea what LIBOR is. But run out of 40s and ciggies, then you might be talking an Obama election crisis.
R Martin| 7.30.12 @ 2:46PM
Sure they do. They think LI is what Obama does and BOR is what he is. But they'll vote for him anyway, because of the M factor--melanin.
Jade12| 8.1.12 @ 1:18PM
Good comment R Martin.
TLP| 7.30.12 @ 6:25PM
LIBOR?
They don't know what a PAYCHECK is?
Ross Kaminsky| 7.30.12 @ 3:30PM
Dems can't and won't use this for a variety of reasons, several of which have been mentioned above:
1) Voters don't know and therefore don't care about the issue.
2) LIBOR is a rate set in another country even if used worldwide, and impossible to tie to GOP
3) Although it would not really be fair, it would be easier to tie Geithner to LIBOR issue than to tie Romney or Republicans to it.
aware| 7.30.12 @ 4:28PM
" Not to mention the role that the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Bank of England played in abetting the fraud both before and after Mr. Obama took office."
Try the leading "role". Central banks are all frauds and those 2 are the ring leaders. They founded fraud that is the fractional reserve system. It vastly enriches a tiny elite while making debt the rule in the lives of hundred of millions.
This kind of economic nightmare caused by such activities as LIBOR crapstorms, sub prime meltdowns, and soon sovereign default with dollar destruction, wouldn't even be possible if your entire economy wasn't "managed" by the Federal Reserves of the world.
I fail to grasp how having better accomplices(regulators) will make a colossal crime activity any more tolerable or less criminal. Corzine was once one of those "regulators" you're looking to for protection. The sole value of that previous position is that he gets to walk around free. And rich. Zilch and a big mess is all the rest of us get.