In-depth TV news coverage is too LIBOR-ious

In-depth TV news coverage is too LIBOR-ious

by digby

In case you are still wondering, here’s an informative discussion of the LIBOR scandal from Eliot Spitzer:

According to Media Matters,with the exception of Spitzer and Chris Hayes, TV news has pretty much avoided even mentioning this scandal, much less trying to explain it.

The papers are getting a little bit more aggressive. This is the top headline story in the dead tree version of theNew York Times today:

New York Fed Knew of False Barclays Reports on Rates

By MICHAEL J. DE LA MERCED and BEN PROTESS

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York learned in April 2008, as the financial crisis was brewing, that at least one bank was reporting false interest rates.

At the time, a Barclays employee told a New York Fed official that “we know that we’re not posting um, an honest” rate, according to documents released by the regulator on Friday. The employee indicated that other big banks made similarly bogus reports, saying that the British institution wanted to “fit in with the rest of the crowd.”

Although the New York Fed conferred with Britain and American regulators about the problems and recommended reforms, it failed to stop the illegal activity, which persisted through 2009.

British regulators have said that they did not have explicit proof then of wrongdoing by banks. But the Fed’s documents, which were released at the request of lawmakers, appear to undermine those claims.

The revelations fuel concerns that regulators are ill-equipped to police big banks and that financial institutions can game the system for their own purposes.

Ya think?

.