Freak Out!

Over at Rolling Stone Matt Taibbi is asking Why is Nobody Freaking Out About the LIBOR Banking Scandal?

I don't know about you, but I was shocked to discover that the Lords of Finance have been manipulating interbank exchange rates. It is outrageous, is it not?

I mean, I've been very worried about all this Monkey Business we've had to put up with these last four years, and now there's this rate-fixing scandal. How will any of us be able to sleep at night?

So, yes, Matt, I agree, it's time to freak out.

 

Comments

[Nat]

I'm finally switching my account from Big Money to the Co-operative bank in England... Should have done this years ago but I'm using the LIBOR scam as the last straw...

[spynetkilla]

Dave, you have excellent and varied taste in music! Nile Rodgers and crew are hugely influential.

I haven't seen or heard ANYTHING about LIBOR in the media (well, a little on BBC). That number is used as the basis for everything the banks do, from the rate one gets on a mortgage, to credit cards, to the rate they give each other. I learned about it when I was getting suckered into house-bondage.

Why is there no outrage? Well, people undergo years of dumbing-down, to the point that they cannot engage in critical thinking. Right now, the information is not being delivered. If it were to be reported, the audience would glaze over and choose to look at something more pleasing. I can see this myself any time I try to discuss something of substance with my friends and family.

[Anywhere But Here Is Better]

Spot on, Dave, as they say in this neck of the dying woods.

Those with half a brain already know how corrupt the whole bloody financial system is, so they are just smiling wryly with the mini-coverage of the World's Worst Financial Fraud (i.e. since yesterday and until tomorrow).

Those for whom the brain is taxed only to the extent of choosing between sports channels and voyeur TV programmes, well, LIBOR is an Arab country for all they know.

I'm just waiting for brain-dead-on-arrival Fox News to get some 'expert' on screen calling for militarised regime change.

[Bill Hicks]

Why is no one freaking out? Because the stock market didn't crash as a result. That's all most people care about. I know from talking with my own circle of friends and professional colleagues that as long as their own portfolios are fine, all the institutional fraud and deception in the world will not matter to them in the slightest. Which is also why I don't talk to them about it anymore.

[NoHype]

Matt seems to have been operating under the assumption that if you make people aware of what's going on, they'll suddenly want to do something about it. He's probably running up against those assumptions now.

I wonder what he'll do for a living once the passion has been sucked all out of him.