United States of America v. Carollo, Goldberg and Grimm

[Balladeer08]

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/libor-scandal-huge-eliot-spitzer-132610929.html

Former New York Governor declares this scandal is about as big as it gets, both on the financial side and the regulatory side.

And IMHO, he is guilty of understatement.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

"The new-age gangsters even invented an elaborate code to hide their crimes. Like Elizabethan highway robbers who spoke in thieves' cant,
or Italian mobsterswho talked about "getting a button man to clip the capo," on tape after tape these Wall Street crooks coughed up phrases
like "pull a nickel out" or "get to the right level" or "you're hanging out there" –
all code words used to manipulate the interest rates
on municipal bonds. The only thing that made this trial different
from a typical mob trial was the scale of the crime."

I lurves me some Matt Taibbi.

 

[renard_ruse]

What's the solution to the "banking problem"? Perhaps we should try Islamic non-usurious banking?

 

[Balladeer08]

What's the solution to the "banking problem"? Perhaps we should try Islamic non-usurious banking?

We should certainly try something besides ignoring it.

In my opinion, this story should be getting the kind of play Watergate did. It is a HUGE story.

With local hooks all over the country. So why aren't local media digging in to find out how much their projects lost on this kind of cheating?

I encourage you to write or call your local news media and ask them to cover the local angles on this story. Tell your friends to do so as well.

Anonymity is the banksters friend.

Let's shine a light on these cockroaches.

 

[Balladeer08]

The Goldman Sachs "huddle" fits right in here.

How is that NOT trading on insider information? Did insider trading become legal?

 

[CaptainKirk]

Heard this on the morning news. Looks like regulators are stepping up their investigations into the interest rate shenanigans that went on with some of the major players during the financial meltdown.

/www.usatoday.com/money/industries/banking/story/2012-06-28/britain-bank-probe/55883264/1

This ought to be good.

 

[Balladeer08]

Heard this on the morning news. Looks like regulators are stepping up their investigations into the interest rate shenanigans that went on with some of the major players during the financial meltdown.

/www.usatoday.com/money/industries/banking/story/2012-06-28/britain-bank-probe/55883264/1

This ought to be good.

Excellent article, thanks for the link.

The amount of money involved in this is simply staggering.

 

[CaptainKirk]

Sorry I didn't get back to you; busy couple of days cleaning out the garage. My back has seen better days.

Excellent article, thanks for the link.

The amount of money involved in this is simply staggering.

Tell me about it. It's just mind boggling how these guys find sneaky ways of raking in more money while the rest of the world is spiraling down the financial toilet. They just keep taking and taking and all they want is more.

And speaking of 'more', looks like the investigators have their eye on more than just a couple of players in this game.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2166242/Barclays-20-banks-including-HSBC-facing-criminal-inquiry-rate-fix-scandal.html

 

[Balladeer08]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-blows-whistle-Americas-financial-giants.html

These are the kind of people you put on the guillotine face up.

 

[CaptainKirk]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-blows-whistle-Americas-financial-giants.html

These are the kind of people you put on the guillotine face up.

Can you believe the nerve of these guys?

Experts said banks might have to set aside billions of dollars in damages to cover their liabilities resulting from the conspiracy.

Yeah, billions of OUR TAX DOLLARS!

I'm just wondering how long it will take for the other 'outrage' threads to show up. You know, the ones from the 'right' side? The ones that champion big business and good ol' fashion capitalism?

...yeah, like that'll happen.

 

[Balladeer08]

Can you believe the nerve of these guys?



Yeah, billions of OUR TAX DOLLARS!

I'm just wondering how long it will take for the other 'outrage' threads to show up. You know, the ones from the 'right' side? The ones that champion big business and good ol' fashion capitalism?

...yeah, like that'll happen.

This isn't "Big Business".

This is ORGANIZED CRIME.

Price fixing by rigging bids through bribery. Same way the Mafia used to do garbage collection contracts, etc.

It is a criminal conspiracy. That isn't a "conspiracy theory", the Feds have the recorded calls and emails. It is a flat out fact.

 

[CaptainKirk]

This isn't "Big Business".

This is ORGANIZED CRIME.

Price fixing by rigging bids through bribery. Same way the Mafia used to do garbage collection contracts, etc.

It is a criminal conspiracy. That isn't a "conspiracy theory", the Feds have the recorded calls and emails. It is a flat out fact.

We better make sure we stock up on slickers and waders, because it's going to be deep and messy when this gargantuan pile of shit hits the fan.

And this time, we had better see some jail sentences handed out!

 

[Sean]

Why isn't Sheriff Joe the Birther investigating this?

 

[doctor_insanus]

Iceland didn't fuck around and bail out the bankers. They threw the bastards in jail, where they belong.

America is too pussified to even consider that, but it would go a long way toward fixing our problems.

 

[run_silent]

Why isn't Sheriff Joe the Birther investigating this?

Because CSI New York is investigating it. I know that makes no sense and has nothing to do with the original post. I was joining in on the silliness.

 

[Balladeer08]

Because CSI New York is investigating it. I know that makes no sense and has nothing to do with the original post. I was joining in on the silliness.

I've tried getting some of the local "investigative reporters" to get in on the local aspects of it, so far, no interest.

Which astounds me.

The story as it stands is pretty much at the stage of the Watergate burglars being arrested, no higher-ups being sought.

Trillions of $$$$$, and no interest?

It is like the just assume anything involving banking or bonds is too complicated to explain. And this isn't, it is bribery and bid-rigging. On an enormous scale.

 

[Licia]

I've been saying that big business functions like organized crime. Housing bubble, hello.

I've also brought evidence, clear evidence that the Obama administration is trying to further walmart. An outcry went unheard; later, the powers that be attempted to set up the oasis in crime infested desert. China has a big investment tied to walmart, as does the third world.

This might be an interesting read when placed in light of the current plan to forgive debt through an IBR of 25 years or a reduced sentence of community service ... Americorps and whatnot -- See the link for the Emancipation Manifesto, 1861 linky.

Most political models are built from history, same as war tactics.

History has been thrown out of high school? University?

 

[Balladeer08]

Here are some links as this expands.

https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/07/02-4


Nobel Prize winner and former World Bank economist Joseph Stiglitz has called recent revelations that Barclays and other large banks colluded to defraud their costumers by artificially leveraging international interest rates a "textbook illustration" of how banks use privileged information and lax oversight to reap rewards for themselves while savaging the wider societies in which they operate.

Stiglitz argues, in paraphrase by interviewer Ben Chu, "that breaking the economic and political power that has been amassed by the financial sector in recent decades, especially in the US and the UK, is essential if we are to build a more just and prosperous society. The first step, he says, is sending some bankers to jail."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/02/barclays-libor-idUSL6E8I22JH20120702

Reuters is doing updates on Barclay. Barclay's chairman has resigned, and pressure is mounting to have CEO Bob Diamond quit.

Barclays has admitted that some of its traders tried to manipulate the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor), which is used worldwide as a benchmark for prices on about $350 TRILLION of derivatives and other financial products across a range of currencies and loan durations.

Britain's Serious Fraud Office, a government agency, said it would decide within a month whether to press criminal charges against any of the banks under investigation.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012...bor-manipulation-wheres-the-outrage-here.html

Meanwhile, "Naked Capitalism" wonders why there is no outrage in the USA over all of this.

In case it isn’t yet apparent to you, the unfolding scandal over manipulation of Libor and its Euro counterpart Euribor is a huge deal. Even though at this point, only Barclays, the UK bank that was first to settle, is in the hot lights, at least 16 other major financial players, which means pretty much everybody, is implicated.

But even if US banks have been as deeply involved in Libor manipulation, it’s very unlikely that we’ll see anything remotely like caustic the UK press coverage here. The first reason is many MSM journalists went to the same schools as top bankers, and are reluctant to see members of their class as crooks (this is a long-standing problem, see Kathryn Olmstead’s “Challenging the Secret Government,” which describes how quickly the media retreated from enterprising investigations after Watergate). This has been exacerbated at some institutions by the personal affiliations of top executives. Michael Thomas has argued that the beginning of the end of the New York Times occurred when when Punch Sulzberger joined the board of the Metropolitan Museum: “It meant he would be dining with people he should be dining on.”

By contrast, there seems to be less identification between journalists and leaders in business in government in the UK. Martin Wolf of the Financial Times, speaking at a financial journalism conference at Columbia, remarked that British journalists didn’t see themselves as having a loft role, unlike their American counterparts. But he said that he (and by extension other journalists) assumed top executives and pols were dishonest. That sort of native skepticism seems to have been bred out of the US press.

For some reason, Wall Street never seems to get the message that bribing government officials — and paying each other off — to get access to lucrative municipal-bond underwriting business is illegal. Wall Street has never learned this lesson because the miniscule price it ends up having to pay for misbehaving has absolutely no deterrent value whatsoever.

 

[Balladeer08]

Here is an astounding way of looking at recent money flow.

The UK has spent more money bailing out its banks in the past 12 months than it has spent on science since the time of Christ.

I wish I could take credit for that, but it was Brian Cox.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18736011

 

[zipman]

The bottom line is that there is too much "self-regulation" in the banking industry.

It doesn't work. Period.

Banking regulation and penalties need to be much stiffer.

 

[Balladeer08]

The bottom line is that there is too much "self-regulation" in the banking industry.

It doesn't work. Period.

Banking regulation and penalties need to be much stiffer.

I'm with Stiglitz on this, they need to send bankers to jail.

And I'd go a step beyond, and add a lifetime prohibition against them holding any position of fiduciary responsibility for the rest of their lives.

 

[CaptainKirk]

Looks like the US is stepping up their pace in this game. It's about time!

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/breaking-news/seven-banks-subpoenaed-in-us-libor-probe/story-e6fredec-1226451436351

 

[CaptainKirk]

Whoa! Major buttslam!

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/10/business/us-uk-bank-fines/index.html

 

[Balladeer08]

Whoa! Major buttslam!

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/10/business/us-uk-bank-fines/index.html

This $2.5B fine is for money laundering.

Which is not part of what I call the "Bankster's Triangle" involving TRILLIIONS of dollars.

 

[JackLuis]

We have a precedent for incarcerating criminals, Treat them like Bradly Manning. That will teach them.

Why not go to the top in this case, it's not a case of minions gone wild. Put the CEO's of the top seven banks in Gitmo for five or six years for not watching their minions.