The British Scandal of how Barclays got caught rigging LIBOR is just the TIP of the real iceberg. The big banks are traders, not bankers. If you have to speculate to make the big bucks, you are a hedge fund – not a banker. The problem is that the banks get inside info because they get to look at the portfolios of clients. If anyone else did that, it would be called “insider trading” and they would destroy your firm if you were outside of New York City as they did with Drexel Burnham of Philsdelphia.
The Financial Industry is spiraling down a path that they better wise up or they will be destroyed. The mob will blame them for the entire era of politicians who have borrowed and left society in a position that they can never pay back the debts. Hitler’s support against the Jews began as getting the “Jewish” bankers. History repeats and if we do not stop this spiral, when the shit-hits-the-fan, as the say, you can count on the politicians pointing their fingers at the bankers and declaring – See, it ain’t us. It was them!
This always plays out the same way. Gretchen Morgenson’s piece in the NY Times, The British, at Least, Are Getting Tough, illustrates the stark difference between New York and the rest of the world. It is time to clean house before it burns down.
