Meanwhile, At The Fed

American History You Probably Never Learned #101: Follow the Money

Here's a juicy sideways connection. Da-da's oldest son, Nagurski, is currently reading a kid's book about all the U.S. Presidents, and it spells out a puzzling fact of history that's always bugged Da-da: every President killed -- and there were a lot -- was killed because of money and banking. It's an integral part of U.S. history, as you'll see below. Note Da-da's assorted notes on The Titanic, halfway down, as well as others [in brackets]. 

This timeline shows the pattern of American Presidents being assassinated after challenging central bankers and their monopoly on money, and the Federal Reserve’s artificial creation of booms and busts that causes people to lose their jobs, homes, and retirements, while the bankers further consolidate wealth and control.

1694 – Bank of England Established
First Central Bank established in the UK. Served as model for most modern central banks.

1744- Mayer Amschel Rothschild, Founder of the Rothschild Banking Empire, is Born in Frankfurt, Germany
Mayer Amschel Rothschild extended his banking empire across Europe by carefully placing his five sons in key positions. They set up banks in Frankfurt, Vienna, London, Naples, and Paris.  By the mid 1800’s they dominated the banking industry, lending to governments around the world and people such as the Vanderbilts, Carnegies, and Cecil Rhodes.

1757- Colonial Scrip Issued in US
Debt free, fiat currency was printed in the public interest. As Benjamin Franklin said,
“In the colonies we issue our own money. It is called colonial scrip. We issue it in proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry to make the products pass easily from the producers to the consumers. In this manner, creating for ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power and we have no interest to pay no one.”

1776 – American Independence

1791 – Congress Creates the First US Bank – A Private Company, Partly Owned by Foreigners – to Handle the Financial Needs of the New Central Government
Previously, the 13 states had their own banks, currencies and financial institutions.

[Da-da insert: 1812 -- Rothschild makes a killing buying and selling bonds associated with The War of 1812 via advanced knowledge (one whole day) of the outcome of Wellington's battle with Napoleon, boosting his existing wealth by 6300%.]

1816 – The Privately Owned Second Bank of the US was Chartered – It Served as the Main Depository for Government Revenue, Making it a Highly Profitable Bank

1832 – Andrew Jackson Campaigns Against the 2^nd Bank of the US and Vetoes Bank Charter Renewal
Andrew Jackson was  skeptical of the central banking system and believed it gave too few men too much power and caused inflation. He was also a proponent of gold and silver and an outspoken opponent of the 2^nd National Bank. The Charter expired in 1836.

1833 – President Jackson Issues Executive Order to Stop Depositing Government Funds Into Bank of US
By September 1833, government funds were being deposited into state chartered banks.

Jan 30, 1835 – Jackson Escapes Assassination
Assassin misfired twice.

1833-1837 – Manufactured “boom” created by central bankers – money supply Increases 84%, Spurred by the 2^nd Bank of the US
The total money supply rose from $150 million to $267 million.[1]

1837-1843 – Terrible Depression
343 of the 850 banks in the US closed entirely as largest banks consolidated wealth and power.[2]

1861 – American Civil War

1862-1863 Lincoln Over Rules Debt-Based Money and Issues Greenbacks to Fund the War
Bankers would only lend the government money under certain conditions and at high interest rates, so Lincoln issued his own currency – “greenbacks” – through the US Treasury, and made them legal tender. His soldiers went on to win the war, followed by great economic expansion.
           
April 15, 1865 – Lincoln Assassinated

1881- President James Garfield, Staunch Proponent of “Honest Money” Backed by Gold and Silver, was Assassinated
Garfield opposed fiat currency (money that was not backed by any physical object) and was a strong advocate of a bi-metal monetary system. He had the second shortest Presidency in history.

[Da-da insert: March 4, 1901 -- William McKinley Assassinated.
McKinley was also a strong advocate of a bi-metal monetary system.]

1907- Banking Panic of 1907
The New York Stock Exchange dropped dramatically as everyone tried to get their money out of the banks at the same time across the nation. This banking panic spurred debate for banking reform. JP Morgan and others gathered to create an image of concern and stability in the face of the panic, which eventually led to the formation of the Federal Reserve. The founders of the Federal Reserve pretended like the bankers were opposed to the idea of its formation in order to mislead the public into believing that the Federal Reserve would help to regulate bankers when in fact it really gave even more power to private bankers, but in a less transparent way.

1908 – JP Morgan Associate and Rockefeller Relative Nelson Aldrich Heads New National Monetary Commission
Senate Republican leader, Nelson Aldrich, heads the new National Monetary Commission that was created to study the cause of the banking panic. Aldrich had close ties with J.P. Morgan and his daughter married John D. Rockefeller.

1910 – Bankers Meet Secretly on Jekyll Island to Draft Federal Reserve Banking Legislation
Over the course of a week, some of the nations most powerful bankers met secretly off the coast of Georgia, drafting a proposal for a private Central Banking system. Those in attendance included Nelson Aldrich, A.P. Andrew (Assistant Secretary of the Treasury), Paul Warburg (Kuhn, Loeb, & Co.), Frank Vanderlip (President of National City Bank of New York), Charles D. Norton (president of the Morgan-dominated First National Bank of New York), Henry Davidson (Senior Partner of JP Morgan Co.), and Benjamin Strong (representing JP Morgan).

[Da-da insert: April 15, 1912 -- Titanic Sinks, With All Central Bank Foes on Board
J.P. Morgan, who owned the Titanic, "just missed the boat" after promising to iron out the differences with all foes of the Federal Reserve during the voyage, who all just happened to be on board to meet with Morgan about this issue. The ship famously sank and of course had only enough lifeboats for the women and children. All of those financial figures who were against The Fed perished, some 600+. Now, since Morgan literally missed the boat, he went on to help create...]

Dec 23, 1913 – Federal Reserve Act Passed
Two days before Christmas, while many members of Congress were away on vacation, the Federal Reserve Act was passed, creating the Central banking system we have today. It was based on the Aldrich plan drafted on Jekyll Island and gave private bankers supreme authority over the economy. They are now able to create money out of nothing (and loan it out at interest), make decisions without government approval, and control the amount of money in circulation.

1913 – Income tax established -16^th Amendment Ratified
Taxes ensured that citizens would cover the payment of debt due to the Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, which was also created in 1913.The 16^th Amendment stated: “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”

[Da-da insert: Tax Day, April 15th -- the anniversary of the Titanic's sinking -- is later installed to secretly commemorate J.P. Morgan's Titanic scam.]

 1914 – JP Morgan and Co. Profits from Financing both sides of War and Purchasing Weapons
 J.P. Morgan and Co. made a deal with the Bank of England to give them a monopoly on underwriting war bonds for the UK and France. They also invested in the suppliers of war equipment to Britain and France.

November 1914 – Federal Reserve Banks Open

1921-1929 – The “Roaring 20’s” – The Federal Reserve Floods the Economy with Cash and Credit
From 1921 to 1929 the Federal Reserve increased the money supply by $28 billion, almost a 62% increase over an eight-year period.[3] This artificially created another “boom”.

1929 – Federal Reserve Contracts the Money Supply
In 1929, the Federal Reserve began to pull money out of circulation as loans were paid back. They created a “bust” which was inevitable after issuing so much credit in the years before. The Federal Reserve’s actions triggered the banking crisis, which led to the Great Depression.

October 24, 1929 – “Black Thursday”, Stock Market Crash
The most devastating stock market crash in history. Billions of dollars in value were consolidated into the private banker’s hands at the expense of everyone else.

1930- Great Depression Begins

1929-1933- Federal Reserve Reduces Money Supply by 33%

June 4, 1963 – Kennedy Issued [His Last] Executive Order (11110) that Authorized the US Treasury to Issue Silver Certificates, Threatening the Federal Reserve’s Monopoly on Money
This government-issued currency would bypass the government's need to borrow from bankers at interest.

Nov. 22, 1963 - Kennedy Assassinated

December 1963 – Johnson Reverses Kennedy’s Banking Rule and Restores Power to the Federal Reserve With His [First] Executive Order

1999 – The Financial Services Modernization Act Allows Banks to Grow Even Larger
Many economists and politicians have recognized that this legislation played a key part in the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007.  It repealed part of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 and allowed investment banks, commercial banks, securities firms, and insurance companies to merge. Citigroup was a major proponent of this particular bill (it had already merged with Travelers Insurance and needed to find a way to legally keep the corporation together). The government gave Citi officials the opportunity to review and approve drafts before the legislation was introduced and to modify it as they desired. Robert Rubin, Treasury Secretary at the time, helped move the bill forward in early 1999.  He then stepped down from the Treasury position in July, joined CitiGroup in October, and the bill was passed in November.  The Center for Responsive Politics also found that members of Congress who supported the bill received twice as much money from the banking sector than those who opposed it.[4]

2000-2003 – The Federal Reserve Extends “Easy Credit”, Lowers the Federal Fund Rate from 6.5% to 1%[5] and Sets up Another Financial “Boom”

2004 – Investment Banks and the SEC Cut a Deal
On April 28, 2004, five of the biggest investment banks, including Bear Stearns and Goldman Sachs (then run by Henry Paulson, who later became Secretary of the Treasury), met with members of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), urging them to allow voluntary regulation of themselves, so they could determine themselves how much money they could make up out of nothing to loan into circulation. This is known as the banks leverage ratio, or amount of assets to borrowing ratio. Up until 2004, the amount of debt the banks could take on was limited. However, in 2004, the SEC agreed to let banks regulate themselves and take on as much debt as they wanted, therefore unleashing billions of dollars for high-risk investment packages. Under this new voluntary regulation the Bear Stearns ratio, for example, jumped to 33 to 1.[6] Not long after, the economy collapsed and financial wealth and power was again further consolidated into the hands of the private bankers who run the Federal Reserve.

2004-2006 – Federal Reserve Sets Off New “Bust” by Making Loans and Adjustable Rate Mortgages More Expensive, Raising Fed Fund Rates to 5.25%[7], This contracts the market.

2007-2010 – Worst Financial Crisis Since the Great Depression
The financial crisis impacted people around the world – millions lost their homes, jobs, and retirement funds. Many of the smaller banks were absorbed by others, which allowed the biggest banks to further consolidate wealth and eliminate competition. In 2008, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. bought up both Washington Mutual (the biggest bank to “fail” in the history of the United States) and Bear Stearns (the fifth largest investment bank).

2010 – JP Morgan Chase Reports Record Profits
The bank made a record profit of $17.4 Billion in 2010. [8]

[timeline, notes and source]

Besides all the Presidents getting whacked, look at the above pattern of manufactured booms and busts. Bet you never saw that before. But there it is.

Basically, parents today have to ask the question: What kind of world do we want our children to inherit? Da-da doesn't know about you, but he has higher standards.

                                                                                                                                                  [img src: Robert Montgomery]

Thursday's Child is Thinking About the Final Frontier

This is the longest damn tunnel ever.

This is by far the best snapshot portraying the current situation, from Richard Zombeck at HuffPost. It is also the most sobering -- and a little horrifying. A must-read for anyone who has others depending on them. But there is light at the end of that dark tunnel. First, read this:

Below the Fold: Rumor Has It We're Screwed

By Richard Zombeck, HuffPost


We're screwed. That's as good a place to start this post as any. Congress and the Administration have been co-opted -- bought and paid for. Financial regulation is a joke and fraud is a business model and seen as standard operating procedure. Fines are so ridiculously non-punitive that they not only don't serve as punishment, but may actually incentivize crime.

I made that point on Revolution Boston 1510 back in November 2011 on The Jeff Santos Show, "If I got arrested robbing houses and had to give back ten percent of what I stole, not only would I keep robbing houses, I'd hire a crew."

In the words of Noam Chomsky:

The most effective way to restrict democracy is to transfer decision-making from the public arena to unaccountable institutions: kings and princes, priestly castes, military juntas, party dictatorships, or modern corporations.

Even the normally conservative publication The Economist used the term "Bankster" in a recent piece.

For some, there's no apparently obvious way out of this. We've become so entrenched and apathetic that upward movement or change seems nearly impossible.

L. Randall Wray, Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and Senior Scholar at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, NY, writes at the end of a recent post on Economonitor, "Why We're Screwed" that there are two possible scenarios.

In the first, we allow Wall Street to carry on its merry way, as the foreclosure crisis continues and Wall Street steals all homes, packaging them into bundles to be sold for pennies on the dollar to hedge funds. All wealth will be redistributed to the top 1% who will become modern day feudal lords with the other 99% living at their pleasure on huge feudal estates.

Which will take decades and, according to Wray, seems inevitable and by design.
The second is that, "the 99% occupy, shut down, and obliterate Wall Street," and it's a pretty fair assumption that we won't see that any time soon.

Add to the mix a general public that's beaten, depressed, apathetic, over worked, under paid, over medicated (prescribed or otherwise), and generally misinformed or ill-informed and there's not much fight left.

The LIBOR scandal, for example, has been discussed ad nauseam. Misreported as it is, it's still being talked about. For people who get their news in sound bites in the hopes of appearing well informed at the office or in the bar what they get isn't always what they need.

Larry Kudlow from the self-named "Kudlow Report" on CNBC called the LIBOR debacle a victimless crime. Remember, this is coming from an over paid guy with his own show on a major network. Not some unpaid hack blogging on Huffington Post. Of course, this is the same guy who blamed poor people for the mortgage crisis. A statement like that could only come from someone who either has no business commenting, much less reporting, on the economy, or is simply lying.

Kudlow argues in the segment that when the LIBOR went down it benefitted borrowers, so who cares? The problem is it didn't just go down. It was manipulated in both directions. As far as it being a victimless crime: LIBOR goes up, it affects mortgages, student loans, credit cards, rent, etc. LIBOR goes down and it affects state and local government - schools, nursing homes, roads, hospital - yup, no victims there.

Student loan too high? LIBOR. Rent going up? LIBOR. Mortgage just adjusted to 12 percent? LIBOR. Leaky roof at the nursing home, no pillows at the hospital, three-year-old pot hole on your street? LIBOR. In fact there's probably a little LIBOR in your morning coffee.
Here's your victimless crime explained by Pam Martens over at Alternet. The whole piece is well worth reading as Martens worked on Wall Street for 21 years:

The Libor rate was used to manipulate, not just tens of trillions of consumer loans, but hundreds of trillions in interest rate contracts (swaps) with municipalities across America and around the globe. (Milan prosecutors have charged JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, UBS and Depfa Bank with derivatives fraud and earning $128 million in hidden fees.)

Rigging Libor also inflated the value of the trash that Wall Street was parking in 2008 and 2009 at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to extract trillions in cash at near zero interest-rate loans from the public purse. When rates rise, bond prices decline. When rates decline, bond prices rise. The Federal Reserve made loans to Wall Street based on a percentage of the face value of their bonds and mortgage backed securities that they presented for collateral. By pushing down interest rates, the banks were getting a lift out of their collateral, allowing them to borrow more.

As America watches the disparity of wealth grow exponentially, we need to understand that this was not, as Kudlow would like us to believe, a handful of drunken frat boys monkeying with some esoteric index overseas. This was a cartel style, institutionalized transfer of wealth on an unfathomable scale and a crime that the Fed, Congress, and the Administration knew about.
Here's a quote from a transcript that Mark Gongloff of HuffPo wrote about in "New York Fed's Libor Documents Reveal Cozy Relationship Between Regulators, Banks."

"We know that we're not posting um, an honest LIBOR," a Barclays employee tells a New York Fed analyst in an April 11, 2008, call, "and yet we are doing it, because, um, if we didn't do it, It draws, um, unwanted attention on ourselves."

The New York Fed representative expresses sympathy and understanding:

"You have to accept it," she says. "I understand. Despite it's against what you would like to do. I understand completely."

Nice and cozy. Maybe we'd see a little pat on the head or a group hug in the video version. Hot cocoa anyone?

More to the point of this sort of behavior being standard operating procedure, in "Libor fraud exposes Wall Street's rotten core," at the Washington Post.

We don't know who else was fixing bets. Other big banks, including some of the largest in the United States, are under investigation. Barclays doesn't appear to have acted alone, and it is clear that its fixes weren't secret deals by rogue traders. Traders put requests to manipulate the rates in writing and even joked about delivering champagne to those who helped them. It is also clear that many of those who didn't have a fixer -- including consumers, community banks and credit unions -- lost money. Barclays padded its bottom line by taking money from everyone else. It won when it shouldn't have won -- and others lost when they shouldn't have lost. The amount of money involved is staggering.

The article also points out that on any given day, the credit related transactions linked to LIBOR could be worth $800 Trillion.

In L. Randall Wray's piece, "Why We're Screwed," he writes of the banks:

... they took over the whole economy and the political system lock, stock, and barrel. They didn't just blow up finance, they oversaw the swiftest transfer of wealth to the very top the world has ever seen. They screwed workers out of their jobs, they screwed homeowners out of their houses, they screwed retirees out of their pensions, and they screwed municipalities out of their revenues and assets.

Financiers are forcing schools, parks, pools, fire departments, senior citizen centers, and libraries to shut down. They are forcing national governments to auction off their cultural heritage to the highest bidder. Everything must go in firesales at prices rigged by twenty-something traders at the biggest and most corrupt institutions the world has ever known.

No article about the irresponsible and criminal behavior of bankers would be complete without the requisite troll blaming consumers and homeowners. Here's a comment from a reader who calls themselves SirCadbury and is a card carrying member of the "You were asking for it by wearing that skirt" club. Here's the comment (emphasis not mine):

Just because you are good at something and make money from it, EVEN AT THE EXPENSE OF OTHERS WHO DIDN'T WORK AS HARD OR STUDY, does not make you a thief or any sort of a criminal.

You want to know THE REAL REASON your silly example of schools, fire departments etc.... have lost????? THEIR OWN GREED!!!

There's apparently not enough evidence in the world to stop idiotic comments like this from continuing, but I'm going to try any way.

In a recent article in "The Raw Story" Sarah Jaffe of Alternet wrote "Countrywide whistleblower reveals rampant mortgage fraud part of 'everyday business,'" in which she writes about whistleblower Eileen Foster, who was an investigator in charge of Fraud Risk Management at Countrywide. The article is a great read for anyone who wants to start their day with that sickening feeling that usually accompanies utter rage. The following quote from the piece is for the anonymous "SirCadbury" and others of his ilk, who still think this all about greedy and irresponsible borrowers.

A team of investigators went to Boston to look into the complaints in person and were shocked by what they found. "Typically when you're looking for fraud you've got to really look because one of the primary components of a fraud is concealment," Foster said. "These people weren't concealing it. They were concealing it from corporate, but every person who walked into those branches every day was a participant."

"One process was to cut a signature off one document, paste it and make a photocopy so it looks like an original signature," she continued. "A part and parcel of everyday business was to do anything it took to fund a loan."

They had templates for fabricating documents, cases of Wite-Out for changing names and a method for gaming the automated underwriting system--plugging in income values until they got one that worked and allowed them to underwrite the loan. They'd keep a template bank statement from each bank, then plug in different borrowers' names and an asset amount to prove that the borrower could make the payments on the loan.

Let's leave it at that.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-zombeck/below-the-fold-rumor-has-_b_1704354.html

Da-da clipped the whole thing so that he might offer a solution. Now, to the light.

Sure, this looks hopeless, but Da-da has an idea. Arrest the perpetrators and the heads of The Cabal. Zero out all our debt. ALL of it. We then retain all of our property and money to $2M. The Central Banks all go out of business forever, replaced by something simple and transparent. Then we forgive the perpetrators. In exchange for returning all the money and going away forever, they get to keep $5 million of all their holdings. They can keep one big house. Two cars. No planes. No exotic properties in this New Age of Austerity. We then redistribute The Cabal's wealth amongst those who sorely need it -- like all the rest of us. We use all that money for education and rebuilding. The massive real estate confiscated is turned into parks and universities. Everyone gets free educations as far as they want to go. And that's only a few trillion. We use the rest of the money to build scads of Starship Enterprises. Or we just zero out all the money and do without it, New Frontier-style.

So, right: it's kinda like the French Revolution, but without all the violence, and with lots of cool space uniforms and doves and bunnies and free schools and geekiness. Da-da figured that, since Capitalism was dead, we might as well start over with something that had lots and lots of upside.

Yup. With $800 trillion, you can build a lot of these.
Or better yet, get rid of money, entirely. And just build it.

Da-da's Mad as Hell and He's Not Gonna Take It Anymore

"First you've got to get up, you've got to get mad..."

Da-da has to share this with you. He was so mad about the LIBOR scandal (and so should you) that he just called all his representatives in Washington, and... they'd never heard of it. Every one of them denied any knowledge of it whatsoever. 

If this doesn't give you an indication of the scope of this thing -- the biggest economic scandal in world history -- then nothing will. Or do you like being screwed by banks and their political lackeys in perpetuity?

Here's what's happening in the U.S., courtesy of that renegade tabloid, The Financial Times (you can't find it anywhere else):

US widens Libor-rigging probe

By Shahien Nasiripour in Washington

US lawmakers widened their probe into alleged Libor rigging, requesting more documents from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to determine how the regulator dealt with alleged admissions of manipulation.

The House financial services committee’s investigative panel on Monday asked for all records regarding banks’ Libor submissions at the New York Fed; between the regional Fed and the 16 banks involved in setting the London interbank offered rate; and all records between the New York Fed and other government agencies, including foreign organisations in the UK.

The request comes days after the Fed’s bank in Manhattan and separately the Bank of England made public hundreds of pages of emails, memos and call transcripts from 2007 and 2008 regarding Libor in response to demands from lawmakers.

Legislators on both sides of the Atlantic have launched inquiries to determine whether regulators knew about alleged efforts to manipulate a gauge that influences the prices of hundreds of trillions of dollars’ worth of financial instruments, yet looked the other way.

The New York Fed said its documents make clear that it “helped to identify problems related to Libor and press the relevant authorities in the UK to reform this London-based rate”. Tim Geithner, who led the New York Fed at the time before becoming US Treasury secretary, said last week that he and his colleagues acted “very early” in alerting other regulators of their concerns.

According to documents from the Bank of England, the Fed was concerned with the accuracy of the lending gauge but it did not tell its UK counterparts that there were deliberate attempts at manipulation.

Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the Senate banking committee, said last week that Mr Geithner should have been more aggressive.

“He should have been investigating what was going on with Libor,” Mr Shelby said. “[Mr Geithner] had information that something was amiss, but he didn’t do more.”

In April 2008 a Barclays employee told an analyst at the New York Fed that “we know that we’re not posting...an honest Libor”.

Sir Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, told a committee of the UK parliament that he had only learnt about “deliberate misrepresentation” of Libor rates a few weeks ago.

Randy Neugebauer, Republican chairman of the House financial services committee’s investigations panel, said on Monday that while the New York Fed worked to identify flaws in Libor and made recommendations on how to fix it, “what is less clear...is how the [New York] Fed dealt with admissions of market manipulation by Libor contributing banks”.

“As you know, the role of government is to ensure that our markets are run with the highest standards of honesty, integrity, and transparency,” Mr Neugebauer added. “Therefore, any admission of market manipulation – regardless of the degree – should be swiftly and vigorously investigated.”

The New York Fed declined to comment. Mr Neugebauer wants documents by September 1.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/24ea3f74-d4ee-11e1-b476-00144feabdc0.html

LIBOR is used as the primary benchmark for all short term interest rates around the world. We're talking approx. $500 trillion dollars here. So, if it's ok for all of the 16 central banks to screw everyone (these "lie-bros" set the daily rates, folks) on loans and credit card debt, is it ok if Da-da and everyone else stops paying his/her mortgage? Car loans? Howbout if the states stops paying? Municipalities? Countries? That's right, ALL of our contracts with these banks are based on LIBOR, a bogus number the central banks and The Fed conjured out of the air to benefit themselves. These contracts WERE based on good faith. Now, there is no good faith.

You may have already suspected this, but now that it's a FACT that you are being screwed and lied to. Are you alright with that? Do you know how much interest you've paid on all your bills over the course of your life? How much you've indirectly paid in state and federal taxes? How much your company paid? Your state? Your city? All the states and cities and individuals of the world? All of this is influenced by LIBOR. Not to mention the trillions of dollars in bank bailouts your great great grandchildren are supposed to be paying for. People in the UK are going ape over this, because their media is accurately reporting it. Yet another outrage: the failure of the US media.

Sure, this doesn't surprise you, but when are you gonna get mad?

Wake up and BITE that hand. Get it over with.

Btw, anyone talking this scandal down is betraying themselves as being on the take. Track them for yourself, forward and back.

UPDATE 1:

Finally, some action in the US media. Besides ho-hum WashPost and WSJ pieces, there's an excellent article from James Rickards at US News and World Report: LIBOR Fraud May Be the Mother of All Bank Scandals.

Finally, check out Rolling Stone blogger Matt Taibbi dealing with a CNBC squid on the subject.

UPDATE 2:

Da-da has some new insight from a HuffPost blogger -- AND a unique idea on how to rectify this mess.

FED UP: A Must-Watch, Must-Read for Everyone

This is a must-watch for everyone. And this is a must-read:

The Great Revealing: US Marshals Expose
Biggest Scandal in History

Here's a little back-up from the BBC, which along with The Financial Times, are apparently the only reliable media outlets:

BBC NEWS: Super-rich 'hiding' at least $21 Trillion

Which might actually be more like $800 trillion, enough to completely transform everyone's lives completely. Everyone. If the U.S. media weren't owned by these folks, you might be hearing about it more. The last time something like this popped up (e.g., the $21 trillion dollar lawsuit against the Fed by international investors), we had 9/11 the next day. Jeez, what kind of world do you want your kids inheriting?

Or, just bury your head in the sand and keep pulling, suckers.