The latest example of financial fraud comes from Barclays recent admission that they manipulated the Libor & Euribor benchmark interest rates. To avoid further legal action and bad publicity, the firm will pay $200 million dollars to the CFTC, $160 million to the US Department of Justice, and another $93 million to Britain’s Financial Services Authority.  But these fines are insignificant sums when compared to the array of financial instruments derived from just the Libor rate – an estimated $800 trillion of securities, loans and derivatives. The average “Joe” has been unknowingly affected through vehicles like adjustable rate mortgages, stocks and pension funds. Financial firms such as Barclays and others suspected to be involved in this latest scandal – Citigroup, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, UBS, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan Chase, Lloyds, and Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi – have a tremendous motive to keep these benchmarks aligned favorably with their more profitable, proprietary derivatives trades.

Just how much more evidence is necessary to convince the public that the bankers of the world are  quickly losing control of the financial system?  Their legal box of tools are failing them and they must now resort to illegal means like the mobsters we read about in Dick Tracy strips.  It’s worse now, though, because the too-big-to-fail Wall Street banks have most of our politicians in their back pocket, which means their criminal activities won’t be considered criminal, but rather normal operating procedures.  Hence the minor slap on the wrist for public appeasement. Investors need to be aware of what’s happening and take actions to protect their wealth from being taken over by the mob.

Here’s Max Keiser and Michael Krieger discussing this latest scandal on RT.