What is LIBOR, you might be wondering? And who has messed with it?
And how exactly will a banking scandal in London have something to do
Mitt Romney? Well, what wouldn’t it have to do with Mitt
Romney? First things first: LIBOR stands for the London Interbank
Offered Rate, and according to the BBC, it is one of the “most crucial rates in finance” because it underpins trillions of dollars in loans and financial contacts, including (OF COURSE!) American mortgages and student loans. And because a bunch of derivatives traders at Barclay have been playing around with this rate and trying to rig it since 2005, your mortgage payments or student loan payments might have been affected this entire time. (Evidence
for this rate rigging includes the message “”duuuude… what’s up with ur
guys 34.5 3m fix… tell him to get it up!” sent via one trader to
another via unknown means. Yes, apparently they talk like this in the
U.K. too.) Anyway, this scandal MIGHT (but probably won’t, knowing how
these things usually go) lead to the resignation of Barclay’s CEO Bob
Diamond, but in the meantime, it has led him to pull out of a Romney
fundraiser. Because surprise surprise, the corrupt CEO of a disgraced
financial institution was such a big Romney fan that he was going to
host a London fundraiser for the candidate. But it’s cool, Romney
understands. Also, lots of other Barclays bankers have donated craploads
of money to his campaign and even served as his policy advisers, so
it’ll all work out.
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