From Denny: Want to learn more about just how deep the global banking scandal goes? But we want to laugh our way through the tutorial, right? Look no further as both national comedians are here to guide us through a couple of hilarious tutorials that will have you grinning so wide your house will split apart.
It will also make you want to get your shotgun (if you own one) and run right down to the "hallowed halls" of the financial sector and join the Occupy protesters. Now, more than ever, have the protesters succeeded in convincing us that all credit card holders are just financial slaves, doomed to serve the whims of Big Bank Sluts and Congress Whores, both whose masters are Greed.
But first a couple of facts to bring you up to speed in case your eyes glaze over when the financial guys on the news start talking:
Money talks but chocolate sings!
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* What is LIBOR? LIBOR stands for London Interbank Offered Rate. (It used to be the London Interbank Overnight Rate, in case you remembered it this way, but they changed it.)
* Decided by a consortium of leading London banks LIBOR is the short-term interest rate benchmark that would be charged if banks were borrowing from each other.
* LIBOR interest rate gets calculated from 10 different currencies and 15 borrowing periods that range from overnight to one year. This rate is published every day at 1130 AM, London time.
So, how does LIBOR affect you and me? Most credit card agencies, banks and mortgage lenders then respond to this LIBOR rate to set their interest rates of what they charge to us.
* Here's where it gets into the most recent financial scandal at London's Barclays Bank. It turns out that $350 TRILLION in derivatives and other financial products are tied to this LIBOR rate. Last month there were multiple criminal settlements by Barclays Bank. Those settlements revealed just how much they defrauded other banks and the entire world. They were in collusion with member banks to set the daily rate submissions.
* Those folks in collusion with Barclays Bank comprised the largest international financial sector were 250 members of the British Bankers' Association (BBA). The BBA is spread out over 180 countries and enjoy headquarters in 50 countries. Obviously, this is such a large organization that someone was asleep at the switch for oversight.
Funny Pig quote: Never try to teach a pig to sing: it wastes your time and it annoys the pig.
Take a good look at your credit card agreement where the tiny fine print talks about LIBOR and you will get seriously angry to learn just how much the banks have been screwing with you over the years. They have made outrageous money, turning you into their financial slaves. Courtesy of Congress you are so screwed because Congress allows this excessive profiteering with laws skewed heavily in favor of banks, penalizing the customer for any kind of fight back.
All this leads up to is just how badly the world banks manipulated the LIBOR rate that affects every person on the planet for any kind of loan. The middle class is the most negatively affected. Student loan debt is seriously affected, making it near impossible for graduates to pay off their college loans in their life time.
Well, at least you will be able to laugh through through your outrage when Stewart and Colbert get finished mocking - and explaining - the LIBOR scandal. Stewart launches off his usual platform by using news clips to prove his point.
Straight from the politicians' propaganda mouths, he quotes them as declaring the problem with the economy is "too much regulation, greedy public sector, unions, pensions and uncertainty." Read that as the opposite in truth because it is lack of enforced regulations, a greedy private sector, castrated unions and corporate pension raiders have created such a mess the markets cannot have certainty.
Stewart contends that there is no way the Democrats as progressives can coexist harmoniously with the conservative Republicans. You can't have those who believe in oversight be in harmony with those who don't believe in any restraints on greed and corruption.
Or as Stewart declares, "The stallion of the free market cannot run wild, saddled with these progressive sacred cows!"
What's really funny is how Stewart gets a hold of the names of the main characters in this financial play, banking titans Rich Ricci (think comic book character Rich Richie), Bob Diamond (seriously? a guy named Diamond in the financial world?) and Hoare Bank. Yes, that's right, a bank whose name is pronounced as Whore. Can this get any more surreal? Turns out even the Hoare Bank refused to get involved in the LIBOR rate rigging. Now that's bad when a Hoare won't get in bed with the crooks!
And Colbert, well, he is as outrageous as ever as he discusses how the LIBOR lending rates are calculated through investor confidence, the money supply and basically making things up while they went along.
Take a look and get your laugh on:
Thursday July 19, 2012
Libor Interest Rate Scandal
Traders set bank-lending rates after weighing factors like investor confidence, the money supply, the human anus and yanking things out of it.
The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive
International Banking Actuality Part 37
Banks submit false data to manipulate the Libor interest rate, either for the good of the entire economy and all of mankind, or possibly to just benefit themselves.
International Banking Actuality Part 37 - Libor Fallout
Banking titans Rich Ricci and Bob Diamond are implicated in the Libor financial scandal, but an eighth-generation Hoare remains innocent of the rampant rate rigging.
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