Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi joins us to discuss the pattern of systemic
corruption by 16 banks accused of rigging a key global interest rate
used in contracts worth trillions of dollars. The London Interbank
Offered Rate, known as Libor, is the average interest rate at which
banks can borrow from each other. Some analysts say it defines the cost
of money. Barclays was recently fined $453 million for rigging Libor,
and a number of other banks are under investigation. "Ordinary people
actually suffered when Libor was manipulated downward, mainly because
local governments tended to lose money," Taibbi says. "Even the tiniest
manipulation downward, when you’re talking about a thing of this scale,
would result in tens of trillions of dollars of losses. ... The banks
weren’t doing this just to make themselves look healthier, they were
also doing this just to make money. They were trading against this
information in what essentially was the biggest kind of insider trading
you could possibly imagine." Taibbi is author of the book "Griftopia: A
Story of Bankers, Politicians, and the Most Audacious Power Grab in
American History."Video
Source: Democracy Now!
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