The People vs The Too Big to Fails

The City of Oakland vs Goldman Sachs - Oakland City Council votes to terminate swap agreement with Goldman Sachs - San Francisco Chronicle - July 11, 2012

The City of Oakland is currently debating the possibility of terminating a contract it has with the investment bank Goldman Sachs. The deal in question is called an interest-rate swap, and is a particular type of arrangement that was supposed to save the city money, but instead has resulted in Oakland taxpayers making annual payments of around $4 million to the banking giant. Last week city officials, SEIU members, and Oakland taxpayers rallied together at Oakland City Hall to stand up to Wall Street's stranglehold on their community. They marched to Citibank to deliver a letter, telling the bank to stop bilking their city through shady deals like interest rate swaps




Matt Taibbi : The Libor Scandal.The Biggest Financial Scam In World History - CNN - Viewpoint - Eliot Spitzer - The banking system is in the spotlight again amid rising political and public anger over the Libor scandal. Matt Taibbi talks about The Libor Scandal saying that it is The Biggest Financial Scam In World History . Some of you by now have probably heard that the former CEO of Britain's Barclay's Bank resigned over the LIBOR scandal, and has accused the bank -along with others -- of "fixing" interest rates. LIBOR is simply an acronym for London Inter-Bank Offered Rate, the rate at which banks extend credit to each other, similar in effect to the Federal Reserve's rate. This is the Biggest Financial Scam In World History , the largest banking corruption scandal in history.Yet nobody is freaking about LIBOR in America, while JP Morgan caught doing an Enron on US energy markets and GlaxoSmithKline pays 10% of their ill-gotten gains for bribing doctors and scientists across America These large banks have stolen money from every single human on the planet. Not one person was left out. Not even YOU! Now that it is exposed there is no going back. We will ALL support the "NO MORE BAILOUT" mantra... This one will not go away. It was not planned to go away like other "banking scandals". This one will build and build and build until it is known by every man, woman and child on the planet. This is the exposure that will END the bad guys reign.





Barclays Scandal : Bob Diamond Resigns in anger - BBC - Barclays bank CEO Bob Diamond resigns . The chief executive of Barclays, one of the world's largest banks, resigned Tuesday in the wake of a scandal, the bank announced. Bob Diamond's resignation is effective immediately, the bank said. Diamond has long been a controversial figure, and has been a vocal backer of huge bonuses for bankers.Barclay's reputation has been hammered by a scandal involving the rates at which banks lend each other money, known as Libor. Libor rate is the rate banks charge to lend to each other , which is then passed to the customer .In a statement, Diamond, who faced mounting calls to step down, said he made the decision as the external pressure on the bank has reached a level that risks "damaging the franchise". I just can't believe that Bob Diamond of Barlcays Bank had no idea the traders were fixing the libor rate. The sheer gaul of the Barclay's Bank chief executive officer to say he was saddened and angry at the perpetrators and that he was proud of instigating a £100m investigation. The Barclay's Bank CEO also "told tales" on other banks for similar activities "unaware" of it happening at his institution - if you believe that you'll believe anything!!




Why is Nobody Freaking Out About the LIBOR Banking Scandal? - Rolling Stone - matt Taibbi - July 3, 2012 - ...The furor is over revelations that Barclays, the Royal Bank of Scotland, and other banks were monkeying with at least $10 trillion in loans (The Wall Street Journal is calculating that that LIBOR affects $800 trillion worth of contracts).

The banks gamed LIBOR for two semi-overlapping reasons. As noted here last week, there were instances of Barclays traders badgering the LIBOR submitters to "push down" rates in order to fatten their immediate bottom lines, depending on what they were trading or holding that day. They also apparently rigged LIBOR downward in order to produce a general appearance of better health, essentially tweaking their credit scores a few ticks upward.

Most intriguingly, or perhaps disturbingly, there were revelations last week that Bank of England deputy Governor Paul Tucker had a conversation with Diamond at the peak of the crisis in 2008. The conversation reportedly left Diamond, and subsequently his traders, with the impression that the bank had carte blanche to rig LIBOR downward in order to help allay spiraling public fears about the banks’ poor financial health.

British officials, and Tucker individually, deny that Tucker gave Diamond permission to rig rates. But a report by British regulators did conclude that the two were talking about Barclays LIBOR submissions on October 29, 2008, and that as a result of that conversation, Diamond came away with a “misunderstanding.”