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Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke rose to the defense of the New York Fed over its handling of reports as far back as four years ago that Barclays traders had been manipulating the London interbank offered rate.
July 17 -
U.S. officials were told in April 2008 that banks were possibly underreporting their London interbank offered rate submissions, according to documents released on Friday by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
July 13
"The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart took
"You know, there are all these conspiracy theories about the world's financial system being controlled by six Illuminati members in the basement of the Vatican," Stewart said, before waiting a beat. "It's actually just sixteen London lunch buddies."
The opening segment of Stewart's show on Wednesday was devoted to the Libor scandal, in which big banks are facing allegations of manipulating how they set the London interbank offered rate. Revelations about Barclays' participation in the manipulation
A graphic on "The Daily Show" Wednesday referred to the Libor scandal as "International Banking Conspiracy Actuality 37." But before Stewart could delve into its implications, he had to explain just exactly what Libor is.
His first facetious guess: "The percentage of money that must be set aside for government workers' retirement accounts, that have slowed growth."
Then he got sillier: "The mythical half wild boar/half lion that was rumored to have killed Achilles' brother Jimmy the Greek."
But when Stewart finally explained to his viewers that Libor is the rate that banks use to lend to each other, he started to work up his outrage: "Libor becomes the benchmark for really all money lending on, let's say, Earth."
He later exclaimed, "Bankers! Never trust anything that's rhyming with 'wankers.'"
We only wish he had devoted some time to eviscerating
