Baltic Dry Index. 988 +07
LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
Communications released by authorities on Wednesday
showed Barclays traders calling each other "superstar" and with
little concern for covering their tracks as they urged colleagues responsible
for submitting Barclays' Libor rates to try and influence final prices.
Requests came in such as: "We need a really
low 3m fix, it could potentially cost a fortune. Would really appreciate any
help."
We open with Barclays exposing
the depravity of our financialised casino capitalism, socialism-for-banksters
system. They did so only to save their own necks and past bonuses. They are
only the tip of the iceberg. The authorities on both sides of the Atlantic need
to pursue criminal charges against those involved in such egregious behaviour.
Who hurt the public more, Bernie Madoff or corrupt banksters rigging Libor, the
basis for billions of transactions each year? Madoff was a boy scout compared
to banksters rigging Libor.
It's morally wrong to allow a sucker to keep his money.
British Bankers Association, with apologies to W.C. Fields.
Record fines for Barclays are just the beginning of the Libor scandal
If money makes the world go around, Libor makes the money go around first. It's at the heart of everything, and dishonestly manipulating Libor is nothing less than manipulating the price of money itself.
Once you
get your head round that concept it's a bit easier to understand why regulators
on both sides of the Atlantic on Wednesday imposed record fines on Barclays of
£290m – and don't forget that enforcers were being lenient on the grounds
Barclays has been helping with inquiries.
Libor –
the London Inter Bank Offered Rate – is the primary market rate of interest.
The Bank of England sets the official policy rate but Libor is the actual cost
to a bank of borrowing unsecured funds from one another overnight. Without that
flow of funds the financial system doesn't work. That's why interest rates on
subsequent loans of any shape or size are set at a margin above Libor. It's
where the market pricing of money, or credit, begins. And given these loans
become tradeable assets in themselves, with a multitude of derivative contracts
– or financial bets – attached to them, Libor is used to price these markets
too. It's the rate of interest charged at the very base of the financial
pyramid.
US
regulators on Wednesday gave a useful sketch of what that global pyramid looks
like and why Libor is so important. At the apex it reckons there are loans
worth $10 trillion (£6.4 trillion) priced off Libor. There are then interest
rate swaps (derivatives which are insurance against adverse interest rate
movements) worth $350 trillion, also priced with reference to Libor, and then
at the base of this tower eurodollar futures (short-term loans which are also
bets on interest rate movements) worth $564 trillion. Given this, it's
surprising that setting the rate for Libor is unregulated. But it's not even
subject to the full forces of the free market either. It emerges from a
16-strong cartel of banks which, as we now know, was ripe for abuse.
By
manipulating Libor, up or down, Barclays could variously make profits on its
own interest rate punts or give a dishonest impression to the market of its own
cost of funding. It was, according to its own staff, "being dishonest by
definition".
Now back to the fall of
Europe. Either Germany caves in and free Europe dies, replaced by an unelected
bankster run serf state, or Germany holds firm and the European Monetary Union
ends in its present form, with Greece and others leaving the monetary union.
There are no good outcomes to this European leaders summit. Do you prefer death
by hanging or by garrotting? Our banksters must be hoping Germany holds firm,
so an even bigger crisis/scandal than rigging Libor commences next week. Stay
long physical precious metals. The road to hell seems to have reached hell for
Europe.
Long is
the way, and hard, that out of hell leads up to light.
John Milton, Paradise
Lost
June 27, 2012, 8:52 p.m. ET
As Summit Looms, Merkel Sees 'Controversial' Talks
BRUSSELS—European
leaders embark on talks here Thursday over steps they hope will begin to lift
doubts about the survival of the euro, amid heavy skepticism in financial
markets that they can achieve a breakthrough to stem the debt and banking
crises.
At the
two-day summit, the leaders of Spain, Italy and France are expected to pitch
ideas for easing the crisis that will be mostly deflected by German Chancellor
Angela Merkel, whose country would finance most of them.
Some
European Union leaders are urging decisive action: "I think it is very
important that this [summit] rules out any doubt about the irreversibility of
the euro," said José Manuel Barroso, head of the European Commission, the
EU's executive arm.
The
leaders will discuss how euro-zone economies can move toward tying their
budgets and banking systems closer together based on a report put together by
senior European Union officials. But markets aren't optimistic about major
progress.
"The only element this week's summit could
already decide is a European bank supervision, which could be regarded as a
first step towards a banking union," said Carsten Brzeski, senior
economist at ING in Brussels.
Ms.
Merkel acknowledged in Berlin on Wednesday that the meeting could be a tough
one for her. "I have no illusions. I expect controversial discussions in
Brussels and once again all eyes, or at least many eyes, will be on
Germany," Ms. Merkel told lawmakers in the Bundestag.
As she
spoke, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy had just told his own Parliament
that Spain couldn't sustain super-high interest rates on its debts for much
longer. The day before, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti said he was prepared
to stay in Brussels until Sunday if that's what it took to forge a credible
solution to the euro zone's worsening troubles.
More
Spain cannot finance itself for long, says PM Mariano Rajoy
Spain's prime minister warned that his country cannot continue to finance itself and he called for Europe to move urgently to reduce unsustainably high interest rates.
"The
most urgent subject is the subject of financing," Mariano Rajoy told
Spain's Congress yesterday.
"We
can't finance ourselves at the prices we are paying for very long," he
said as the yield on 10-year bonds traded at more than 6.8pc.
He issued
the stark warning on the eve of a European Union summit and called on EU
partners to take urgent action using all "available instruments" to
reassure markets and bring down punitive interest rates.
If Spain,
the fourth biggest economy in the eurozone, is shut out of the markets it could
be forced to seek a full-blown bailout.
"There
are institutions and also financial entities that cannot access the markets. It
is happening in Spain, it is happening in Italy and it is happening in other
countries," he said.
----The
Bank of Spain reported that the nation is sinking deeper into recession with
economic output in the second quarter of this year shrinking "at a more
intense pace" than the three months previously when a contraction of 0.3pc
was posted
“The
hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral
crisis, maintain their neutrality.”
Dante
Alighieri, Inferno.
At the Comex silver depositories Wednesday final figures were: Registered 35.89
Moz, Eligible 110.05 Moz, Total 145.94 Moz.
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