Everything is Rigged, Vol. 9,713: This Time, It’s Currencies
I’ll get into this in more detail later (I’m on deadline for a magazine feature), but this story just landed. Given the LIBOR story, the Interest Rate Swap manipulation story, the Euro gas price manipulation story, the U.S. energy price manipulation story, and (by now) countless others of the “Everything is Rigged” variety, this screams out for immediate notice. Via Bloomberg:
Traders at some of the world’s biggest banks manipulated benchmark foreign-exchange rates used to set the value of trillions of dollars of investments, according to five dealers with knowledge of the practice . . .
Employees have been front-running client orders and rigging WM/Reuters rates by pushing through trades before and during the 60-second windows when the benchmarks are set, said the current and former traders, who requested anonymity because the practice is controversial. Dealers colluded with counterparts to boost chances of moving the rates, said two of the people, who worked in the industry for a total of more than 20 years.
This time the rates allegedly being rigged are in the foreign-exchange or “FX” markets, meaning that if this story is true, it would almost certainly trump LIBOR for scale/horribleness.
As one friend of mine who works on Wall Street put it, “It’s endless! This is the biggest market in the world.” Bloomberg suggested the story is just the tip of the iceberg:
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All I can say –it costs the Private Bankers estimated 8 1/2 cents to print a US Federal Note denomination of $100. Sweet Deal for our sweat equity -labor. To then get threatened for not paying certain obligations due to demolished economy created by misconducts’ activities is unacceptable. We all need to enter the Monetizing Profit Center vs. the Securitization Profit Center re: Illegal Foreclosures and ask the question – Who is the true creditor?
This is the America of today where everyone is out to screw everyone form congress to Banks to Wall Street and Beyond and until the masses, me and you and all of us taxpayers put our foots down and insist that it stops it will just keep on.The real problem is back in a time when a hard working man or women had a deal with a business or corp or bank and it was found to be fraudulent,or misleading or full of sh.t you could take your dispute to a court of law[law-thats funny]and get that bs contract thrown out and that would be it.Now since even judges get paid off on a daily basis its a bit hard to get any help at all and the government doesnt want to have to step in to every dispute[oh and there paid off also just much more].So we are all f..ked until we UNITE and tell these bitches to step off.They will not be able to make all of us gov employees so theres still a chance but there trying.