Barclays Libor Scandal: The Complicit Regulators

Today’s Wall Street Journal lead editorial, New York Fed to Barclays: ‘Mm hmm’, concludes,

. . . if this is really the epic deceit and crime we are now reading about, then either new evidence needs to come to light, or the regulators who smiled and nodded and “Okayed” and “Mm hmmed” through the panic years are complicit with the banks now in the dock. They had ample opportunity to shut down this behavior, but nothing released by the New York Fed or the Bank of England suggests much more than a raised eyebrow at the time.

I am highly confident that there is plenty of supportive evidence of deceit and conspiratorial activity in the many thousands of e-mails and communications which officials have indicated they already hold. That said, let’s not discount for even a second that the regulators were complicit with the banks now in the dock. 

To wit, I welcome submitting an extensive body of evidence and supportive commentaries all under my oft-written heading of the Wall Street-Washington Incest. There are merely 130 or so stories linked there and written over the last three plus years that paint a very tangled, dare I say incestuous, web between the banks on Wall Street, their cronies in Washington, and the ineffectual regulators who serve at their behest.

I find it interesting that none other than The Wall Street Journal poses the question highlighted above. Why?

Back in January 2009 I brought riveting information regarding Wall Street’s self-regulatory organization FINRA and its auction-rate securities holdings to the WSJ. What happened? This most highly respected of financial periodicals passed on pursuing that story. Then what transpired?

I brought it to Bloomberg News. To their credit, they chose to pursue the story and revealed that FINRA liquidated its ARS holdings mere months before that market segment totally collapsed. Many inside and outside the industry view FINRA’s ARS liquidation as little more than a form of front running and/or insider trading.

Regulators complicit with banks? Come on. Stop the nonsense or dare I ask the editors of the WSJ,  ”how much time do you have to discuss this topic?”

You really cannot make this stuff up.

Playing to win here.

Related Sense on Cents Commentary
Barclays Libor Scandal: The Precedent
Barclays Libor Scandal: Holding Regulators to Account
Barclays Libor Scandal: “Diamond Lied”
Barclays Libor Scandal: Who’s Really to Blame? 
Barclays Libor Scandal: When Did Manipulation Start?
Barclays Libor Scandal: How Big Will This Get?
Barclays Libor Scandal: Reports Regulators Knew; Time for Independent Investigation and Eliot Spitzer
Barclays Libor “Price Fixing”: Collusion Is Illegal. . .

Larry Doyle 

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I have no affiliation or business interest with any entity referenced in this commentary. The opinions expressed are my own. I am a proponent of real transparency within our markets so that investor confidence and investor protection can be achieved.

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