Tag: UBS
Banks face the RICO Act in Libor probe
Earlier this week I wrote about the increasing evidence that Libor, the most important number in the world, has been corrupted by the very banks who create it.
Libor’s the interest rate that underlies $360 trillion of financial contracts worldwide. Interest rate swaps and corporate loans, but also mortgages, student loans, credit cards and more. What’s $360 trillion dollars? That’s the economic size of 24 United States of Americas.
Hearing that the Libor panel banks — the biggest, most global in the business — may have been colluding to distort this number is like hearing that there’s a nuclear bomb buried under the Hoover Dam. Libor and its counterparts are nothing less than the foundation that underlies countless financial contracts all around the world. Continue Reading
A $360 trillion confidence trick
Riddle me this: what’s the most important set of numbers in the entire world? The climate change models that say how much time is left until carbon dioxide levels pass the point of no return? Or the numbers that comprise the launch codes for our nuclear warheads?
Either might qualify but some experts would instead point to something else: Libor inputs. Libor’s the interest rate that underlies $360 trillion of financial contracts worldwide. Interest rate swaps and corporate loans, but also mortgages, student loans, credit cards and more. What’s $360 trillion dollars? That’s the economic size of 24 United States of Americas.
Roguish behavior
We’ve been here before: a prestigious bank is damaged and shamed by news that a lone trader has lost way more money than you and I are likely to ever see in our lifetimes. This was the news out of Swiss bank UBS last week:
