the fix is in

wow. i'm not sure how this isn't a national story and by national story, i mean it should be dominating the national conversation on this fourth of july. i don't have cable, so i don't watch the nightly news or cnn or fox news or any of that crap. if you're watching it and they are not constantly talking about this story regarding the fixing of the LIBOR rates, then you should turn it off, disconnect your cable and stop paying attention to news outlets that only make noise and distract the public with stories about tom and katie and a news anchor being gay. who cares?

the fixing of the LIBOR rates is fraud perpetrated on a level that i can't even grasp. this is the fixing of an interest rate that is used with all variable interest rate contracts. this affects the price at which banks can borrow from each other. by pushing LIBOR down, they are artificially lowering their borrowing costs.

matt taibbi has been on it. if you have time, you should read each one of these articles:

LIBOR banking scandal deepens


Why is nobody freaking out about the LIBOR banking scandal?

A huge break in the LIBOR banking investigation

additionally, a couple of guys got a slap on the hand for scamming millions of dollars from basically every american city, county, state and district. how is that not a massive story? colluding to rig the public bids on municipal bonds?

the story says "by conspiring to lower the interest rates that towns earn on these investments, the banks systematically stole from schools, hospitals, libraries and nursing homes – from "virtually every state, district and territory in the United States," according to one settlement. now that's the kind of story it seems americans would be concerned about.

but it's not. being stolen from by banks, the government, businesses in general has become so common place and so complex, that the average american does not have the time or energy to devote to being outraged over it. they're just trying to save whatever money they do have on non-existence interest rates, which is another criminal matter that i'll get into at another time.

happy fourth.