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Everything Is Rigged: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever
Rolling Stone ^ | 4/25/13 | Matt Taibi

Posted on 05/06/2013 5:55:11 AM PDT by mgist

Everything Is Rigged: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever The Illuminati were amateurs. The second huge financial scandal of the year reveals the real international conspiracy: There's no price the big banks can't fix.

onspiracy theorists of the world, believers in the hidden hands of the Rothschilds and the Masons and the Illuminati, we skeptics owe you an apology. You were right. The players may be a little different, but your basic premise is correct: The world is a rigged game. We found this out in recent months, when a series of related corruption stories spilled out of the financial sector, suggesting the world's largest banks may be fixing the prices of, well, just about everything.

You may have heard of the Libor scandal, in which at least three – and perhaps as many as 16 – of the name-brand too-big-to-fail banks have been manipulating global interest rates, in the process messing around with the prices of upward of $500 trillion (that's trillion, with a "t") worth of financial instruments. When that sprawling con burst into public view last year, it was easily the biggest financial scandal in history – MIT professor Andrew Lo even said it "dwarfs by orders of magnitude any financial scam in the history of markets."

That was bad enough, but now Libor may have a twin brother. Word has leaked out that the London-based firm ICAP, the world's largest broker of interest-rate swaps, is being investigated by American authorities for behavior that sounds eerily reminiscent of the Libor mess. Regulators are looking into whether or not a small group of brokers at ICAP may have worked with up to 15 of the world's largest banks to manipulate ISDAfix, a benchmark number used around the world to calculate the prices of interest-rate swaps.

Interest-rate swaps are a tool used by big cities, major corporations and sovereign governments to manage their debt, and the scale of their use is almost unimaginably massive. It's about a $379 trillion market, meaning that any manipulation would affect a pile of assets about 100 times the size of the United States federal budget.

Snip


TOPICS: Business/Economy
KEYWORDS: bankingfraud

1 posted on 05/06/2013 5:55:11 AM PDT by mgist
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To: mgist

Go to youtube. Search collapse american dream. Watch the ~30 minute cartoon. It’s this in an entertaining way.


2 posted on 05/06/2013 5:58:08 AM PDT by cuban leaf (Were doomed! Details at eleven.)
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To: mgist

Here it is:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CDcQtwIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DmII9NZ8MMVM&ei=IqmHUaSMB6Tl0QGWjIGwCA&usg=AFQjCNGMab1iHpyFlbqs4j6H5FCXXzr02w&sig2=-rBIiND4bJTUT8zKgnPjiA


3 posted on 05/06/2013 6:00:00 AM PDT by cuban leaf (Were doomed! Details at eleven.)
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To: blam; dennisw; TigerLikesRooster

Ping


4 posted on 05/06/2013 6:02:10 AM PDT by Travis McGee (www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
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To: mgist

The country that allowed Democrat politicians to run the biggest Ponzi scheme in the history of the world...the U.S. Social Security system....can hardly point fingers at other thieves. But of course, the U.S. government is now broke and looking to get some of the ill-gotten gains of these foreign crooks.


5 posted on 05/06/2013 6:03:13 AM PDT by txrefugee
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Comment #6 Removed by Moderator

To: txrefugee
The country that allowed Democrat politicians to run the biggest Ponzi scheme in the history of the world...the U.S. Social Security system....can hardly point fingers at other thieves. But of course, the U.S. government is now broke and looking to get some of the ill-gotten gains of these foreign crooks.

This has been going on for so long at so many institutions (public and private) that neither polictical party can be separately held for blame.

Just like the 2003-2008 housing bubble with their NINJA loans and the illegal immigrations (great landscaping, cheap hotels, cheap food); most of us benefited and are to blame.

However, those on the inside of financial institutions; managers, directors, agents, brokers made out better than the rest of us.

7 posted on 05/06/2013 6:28:42 AM PDT by cicero2k
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To: mgist

There’s no price the big banks can’t fix.
*********
The Fed has virtually guaranteed that the banks will make money. To paraphrase an old song, its money for nothin, and your profits are free. Too bad we undeserving, tax paying peons can’t get the the same deal the banks get.


8 posted on 05/06/2013 6:34:14 AM PDT by Starboard
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To: Starboard

I’ll see your multi-trillion dollar ripoff, and raise you 0% interest rates guaranteed by Bernanke against the future of all Americans.


9 posted on 05/06/2013 6:43:05 AM PDT by Uncle Miltie (All observant Muslims want to kill you. If they don't, they are not really Muslims.)
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To: cicero2k

neither polictical party can be separately held for blame
*******
From the politicians’ viewpoint it’s all a beautiful scam. The complexities of the political system and the voting games played in congress allow both parties to endlessly avoid blame and accountability. The federal bureaucracy operates in similar fashion.


10 posted on 05/06/2013 6:44:47 AM PDT by Starboard
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To: Uncle Miltie

I used to think this bank stuff was just a lot of conspiracy talk. But I’ve long since been disabused of this incorrect notion.

To make matters worse, Bernanke’s policies are destroying many seniors’ ability to earn even a paltry percentage on their life savings. This is a national disgrace IMO.


11 posted on 05/06/2013 6:49:04 AM PDT by Starboard
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To: Starboard
That isn't a flaw, it is a feature.

The State doesn't want a bunch of old people around. Costs to much. Expect a big push for the “choice” of suicide, followed by the requirement of such.

The game is rigged. But it was rigged for so long no one can really say what would happen if we went back to the “real” rules.

It is possible that he Great Depression would not have ended (there are some theories about this, labor, and what happened with the machine age to change all that).

12 posted on 05/06/2013 7:01:31 AM PDT by redgolum ("God is dead" -- Nietzsche. "Nietzsche is dead" -- God.)
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To: mgist
Sad that so many are late to the party in "discovering" all of this. Some of us have been aware for years of all the connections; the foreign owned "federal reserve" (nothing federal about it and no reserves!), the Council on Foreign Relations (birthed by the fed reserve) and its manipulation of the U.S.press (The AP),.... the IRS (incorporated in Puerto Rico of all places) which behind the scenes (or the "curtain" if you will) is owned by the federal reserve & the IMF.....

It goes on and yes it's all corrupt.

Secrets of the Federal Reserve

13 posted on 05/06/2013 7:29:54 AM PDT by wesagain (The God #Elohim# of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is the One True GOD.)
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To: cicero2k

>>This has been going on for so long at so many institutions (public and private) that neither polictical party can be separately held for blame.

>>Just like the 2003-2008 housing bubble with their NINJA loans and the illegal immigrations (great landscaping, cheap hotels, cheap food); most of us benefited and are to blame.

>>However, those on the inside of financial institutions; managers, directors, agents, brokers made out better than the rest of us.

True dat. Conservatives have been rubber stamping Wall Street’s monopolist and short term thinking for generations. The erosion and removal of Glass-Steagall was the catalyst for the current global financial meltdown. Too big to fail is fascism. Conservatives must smack themselves awake- monopolism is NOT capitalism and should not be knee jerk defended as though it was.


14 posted on 05/06/2013 7:56:37 AM PDT by Yollopoliuhqui
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To: mgist
Capitalism has FAILED and it MUST be REPLACED.

Capitalism has FAILED and it MUST be REPLACED.

Capitalism has FAILED and it MUST be REPLACED.

Nam Myoho Renge Kyo


15 posted on 05/06/2013 7:57:45 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: redgolum

It is possible that he Great Depression would not have ended
*********
Much has been written about actions by the government which prolonged the Depression. We may soon find ourselves in a deja vu situation.

For good read and new perspective on the Great Depression, check out Amity Schlaes great book “The Forgotten Man”.


16 posted on 05/06/2013 3:31:54 PM PDT by Starboard
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To: Starboard
Read that book. Was pretty good.

The big problem that hit during the Depression was what used to take 10 men could be done by a machine. The revolution in farming drove a lot of people off their land.

This change in labor demand meant a lot of people just were not needed. Or as one commenter put it, the gas engine destroyed the economy, and remade it. The cheapest source of power was no longer a man or an animal.

17 posted on 05/06/2013 6:17:36 PM PDT by redgolum ("God is dead" -- Nietzsche. "Nietzsche is dead" -- God.)
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