Now it's LIBOR's fault

[American Horse]

An interesting quote by HolmanJenkins of the WSJ in an article in Friday's WSJ

" He explains that bank bailouts and too big to fail would no longer be necessary, without explaining how, since both bank bailouts and too big to fail predated the repeal of Glass-Steagall.

Mr. Weill finds himself suddenly welcome in the company of editorialists who, since the Libor scandal, have been renewing their clamor for bankers to be imprisoned, if not executed. He's become their new hero. "

 

If you owe the bank $1 million, the bank owns you.
If you owe $1 billion, you own the bank.
If you owe several trillion, you are the financial system.
Libor is called a key underpinning of global finance. But that's far more true of IOUs issued by the U.S. government and its major counterparts. The global financial system is built on a mountain of government debt, and in turn banks and their governments are bedfellows of a highly incestuous order.

That's why, in every transcript and phone memorandum that has come to light, in talking about Libor, regulators and bankers talk to each other as if they were all just bankers talking amongst themselves.

That's why, when a high British official suggested that Barclays lowball its Libor submission during the financial crisis, Barclays didn't hesitate because, as one banker testified to the British Parliament, these were government instructions "at a time when governments were tangibly calling the shots."

Sandy Weill Still Doesn't Have the Answer

The banker-government consortium