This isn’t going to be a good one—I’m depressed.  What is the world coming to?  These guys from Barclays screwed the pooch on the most profitable and stable ATM machine we had ever created.

The London Inter Bank Offered Rate—LIBOR is a bechmark interest rate against which every other interest rate is set.  Which forms the basis of hundreds of trillions dollars of transactions.  And effects nearly every corner of the global economy.  You are getting a mortgage—it set against the Libor.  You are getting a car loan—it’s set against the Libor.  Your city issues a bond?  Pegged to Libor.

Everything in the financial system flows to and from the LIBOR.  And we were jiggling it.

Banks derivatives traders were instructing others within the banks where to price Libor in order to make their short term positions profitable.

And just the hell is wrong with that?  It’s a beautiful and stable source of income, so much so that all of the too big to fails were doing it.

Barclays agreed to pay $455 million dollars to make the regulators go away and now everybody knows about it.

What were those guys thinking?  Use some ingenuity man!  Just because someone poisons your bangers and mash doesn’t mean you have to screw it up the rest of us.