Banker to the Bankers Knows the Numbers Are Lying

[mamboni]

Mamboni comments: This article is like a limited hangout for the banksters. Of course they are not going to correct their balance sheets and mark to market. They killed the market! All the large banks are dead and insolvent. If this was reported there would be mass bank runs on a worldwide scale. Gold and silver would explode.

Banker to the Bankers Knows the Numbers Are Lying


By Jonathan Weil Jun 28, 2012 6:30 PM ET






The Bank for International Settlements, which acts as a bank for the world’s central banks, should know fudged numbers when it sees them. What may come as a surprise is how openly it has been discussing the problem of bogus balance sheets at large financial companies.

“The financial sector needs to recognize losses and recapitalize,” the Basel, Switzerland-based institution said in its latest annual report, released this week. “As we have urged in previous reports, banks must adjust balance sheets to accurately reflect the value of assets.” The implication is that many banks are showing inaccurate numbers now.


Unfortunately the BIS’s suggested approach is almost all carrot and no stick. “The challenge is to provide incentives for banks and other credit suppliers to recognize losses fully and write down debt,” the report said. “Supporting this process may well call for the use of public sector balance sheets.”

So there you have it. More than four years after the financial crisis began, it’s so widely accepted that many of the world’s banks are burying losses and overstating their asset values, even the Bank for International Settlements is saying so -- in writing. (The BIS’s board includes Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank.) It fully expects taxpayers to pick up the tab should the need arise, too.
No Change

In this respect, little has changed since the near-meltdown of 2008, especially in Europe. Spain has requested 100 billion euros ($125 billion) to rescue its ailing banks. Italy, perhaps the next in line for a European Union bailout, is weighing plans to boost capital at some of the country’s lenders through sales of their bonds to the government.

Those bank rescues almost certainly won’t be the last. All but four of the 28 companies in the Euro Stoxx Banks Index (SX7E) trade for less than half of their common shareholder equity, which tells you investors don’t believe the companies’ asset values. While it may be true that the accounting standards are weak, the bigger problem is they are often not followed or enforced.

Government bailouts might be easier for the world’s taxpayers to swallow if banks were required to be truthful about their finances, as part of their standard operating procedure. Nowhere in its report did the BIS discuss the role of law enforcement, although the last time I checked it’s against the law in most developed countries to knowingly publish false financial statements. There have been few fraud prosecutions against executives from large financial institutions in recent years, in the U.S. or elsewhere, much to citizens’ outrage.

In the BIS’s eyes, it seems that it’s enough to merely encourage or incentivize banks to come clean about their losses, by dangling the prospect of additional taxpayer support before them. For example, on the subject of how to deal with overvalued mortgage loans: “One frequently used option is to set up an asset management company to buy up loans at attractive prices, i.e., slightly above current market valuations,” the BIS report said. “Alternatively, authorities can subsidize lenders or guarantee the restructured debt when lenders renegotiate loans.”

The BIS report got this much right: The lack of transparency and credibility in banks’ balance sheets fuels a vicious cycle. When investors can’t trust the books, lenders can’t raise capital and may have to fall back on their home countries’ governments for help. This further pressures sovereign finances, which in turn weakens the banks even more. The contagion spreads across borders. There is no clear end in sight.
Propping Up

To date, the task of propping up the economies in Europe and the U.S. has fallen largely to central banks. As the BIS wrote, easy-money policies also can make balance-sheet repairs harder to accomplish.

“Prolonged unusually accommodative monetary conditions mask underlying balance sheet problems and reduce incentives to address them head-on,” the report said. “Similarly, large- scale asset purchases and unconditional liquidity support together with very low interest rates can undermine the perceived need to deal with banks’ impaired assets.”

At some point, the cycle will break, only nobody knows when. This you can count on: It will take more than subtle inducements to make banks fess up to all their losses. Prosecutors must have a role. There’s nothing like the threat of a courtroom trial to focus a bank executive’s mind. The risk just has to be real.

(Jonathan Weil is a Bloomberg View columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)

[Golden]

Tony Robinson asks if bankers are human

www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-3C_S4YI3U
Published on Jul 1, 2012 by PlanetEarthAwakens01
Actor and broadcaster, Tony Robinson has said that he no longer has any respect for British bankers and the British banking system.

Speaking after Barclays was fined £290m for manipulating banking interest rates, Robinson catalogued how the banks had let down the country for their own interests. Watch more on the Question Time website.

[Horn]

They killed the market!

And still do.

This is anti-inflationary, and only can imply complicity between them.

[Serpo]

And may the Arrests begin....................

Massive global banker scandal revealed – breaking news in the Mainstream Media

RTINGE
It’s finally coming out in the public spotlight in a big way, the semi-covert operation that has been going on behind the scenes for a few years now: the take down of the criminal bankers.
Now we know exactly why those hundreds of bankers have been resigning in droves all over the world these last several months, they knew this was coming. I’ve read that resigning won’t protect the from prosecution for their crimes, however, the authorities know who they are and what they’ve done.
I like to point out how truly great this is because at the heart of all the greed, evil, war, poverty, and corruption in the world is finance. It’s through the control and manipulation of the monetary system that the oligarchs wield their sociopathic power.
They are like the mafia, only much much bigger because they occupy powerful positions world wide in finance, politics, and corporations. So this is really striking at the heart of the beast, and that’s why it’s such a great thing and will hopefully have very far reaching positive consequences for the entire planet. If that seems is bit exaggerated or overly dramatic hehe, then just wait until the true extent of the theft is revealed. Apparently, or so I’ve read, it’s of a magnitude that is a little beyond most people’s comprehension, the vast amounts of wealth that has been illegally extracted from nearly every nation on the planet for generations.
Imagine stealing a significant % of everyone’s income (almost everyone in the world) for the last 80 years or so. That’s essentially what it boils down to, and it’s just an unimaginable amount of money, and most of it taken from people struggling to get by or just survive.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg with regard to what’s been going on in this crazy world.
____________
20 more banks were rigging interest rates: British bankers now facing criminal inquiry over scandal that was kept secret for years

• Barclays shares drop 15 per cent as pressure on Diamond grows
• George Osborne promises new criminal sanctions for market abusers
• RBS, HSBC and Lloyds all named as under investigation as scandal widens

Daily Mail
By JAMES CHAPMAN, BECKY BARROW, RUTH SUNDERLAND and ROB DAVIES
PUBLISHED: 17:53 EST, 28 June 2012 | UPDATED: 01:56 EST, 29 June 2012
Hundreds of bankers across three continents are embroiled in the interest-rate fixing scandal that has left Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond fighting to save his job.
As pressure intensified on Britain’s highest paid banking boss to quit, MPs heard a string of other financial institutions across the world were under investigation.
At least 20 banks are believed to be under suspicion, with growing demands for a criminal investigation.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/...77_634x466.jpgBarclays Bank Tower at Churchill Place, Docklands: The bank has been fined £290million over attempts to rig money market interest rates. HSBC is one of the twenty other banks also under investigation, it emerged today
Barclays’ shares crashed by 15.5 per cent in a day as the implications sank in, wiping £3.7billion from its value, with other banks also hit.
Barclays has been fined £290million after devastating emails revealed that its traders manipulated the London Interbank Rate (Libor) – the rate at which banks lend money to each other.
Chancellor George Osborne told the Commons the exchanges ‘read like an epitaph to an age of irresponsibility’.
On the blackest day for Britain’s finance industry since the 2008 economic crisis:

• Serious Fraud Office investigators were revealed to be in talks with financial watchdogs over the scandal
• David Cameron and Ed Miliband piled pressure on Mr Diamond to resign
• Barclays and other banks were braced for a damning verdict today in an official report on mis-selling of complex loans to 28,000 small firms
• Mr Osborne promised new criminal sanctions for those guilty of market abuse
• Downing Street faced a growing clamour for a judge-led public inquiry into the ethics of Britain’s banks

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/...37_306x423.jpg‘Epitaph to an age of irresponsibility’: George Osborne today briefed MPs in the Commons about the unfolding bank trading scandal
David Cameron, who is at an EU summit in Brussels, described the situation as an ‘extremely serious scandal’.
Mr Diamond, who was in charge of Barclays Capital at the time traders are now known to have been rigging the market, has offered to forgo his short-term bonus for this year. But he is still entitled to millions of pounds in salary and long-term share incentives.
Asked how much wider the rate-fixing scandal might go, the Chancellor told MPs: ‘HSBC and RBS are two of the banks under investigation, but international banks such as UBS and Citigroup are under investigation too, partly for activities conducted in this country.’
Mr Osborne said the total impact on the economy and on individuals was ‘extremely difficult to work out, because the Libor rate was manipulated up as well as down’.
‘Sometimes the rate was too low for the true market price, and sometimes it was too high,’ he said.
‘The Financial Services Authority has made it clear, however, that that contributed to a risk to the country’s financial stability, and the cost of that is enormous.’
Tracey McDermott, director of enforcement at the FSA, said: ‘The initial indications are that Barclays was not the only firm that was involved in this.’
As well as RBS and HSBC, others under scrutiny include Lloyds, JPMorgan Chase, Germany’s Deutsche Bank and Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi.
A number of employees have already been fired, suspended or put on gardening leave at various banks including state-backed RBS, which has sacked and suspended ‘several’ staff, though the bank declined to comment.
SACKED RBS TRADER ACCUSES BANK CHIEFS OF COLLUDING WITH STAFF TO RIG INTEREST RATES

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/...82_306x338.jpgThe alleged behaviour at RBS started when Fred Goodwin was chief executive
Royal Bank of Scotland managers are accused of colluding to rig the financial markets in court papers filed by a former employee.
Tan Chi Min, a former head of delta trading for RBS’s global banking and markets division in Singapore, alleges that managers condoned collusion between its staff to set the Libor rate artificially high or low to maximise profits.
He names five staff members he claims made requests for the Libor rate to be altered and three senior managers who he said knew what was going on. He also says the practice ‘was known to other members of [RBS]’s senior management’.
Mr Tan, who was eventually sacked for gross misconduct, worked for RBS from August 2006 to November 2011 and it is believed the alleged behaviour started when Fred Goodwin, pictured, was chief executive.
He claims that he was made a ‘scapegoat’ for malpractice condoned by managers and is suing for wrongful dismissal.
In the court papers filed in New York as part of a class action, Mr Lin also implicates hedge fund bosses who have given thousands of pounds to the Conservative Party.
It is claimed that hedge fund Brevan Howard asked RBS to fix financial data by making false submissions. The fund donated £10,000 to the Tories and spent £3,542 on flights for George Osborne to attend a conference in 2008.
RBS said it was confident of mounting a successful defence against Mr Tan’s claims.
Last night there were reports the bank is to be fined £150million for similar offences to those committed by Barclays.


Lloyds said it had suspended two traders. ICAP, the leading City broking firm headed by Tory donor Michael Spencer, has also been dragged into the scandal. It has suspended one employee and placed two on ‘administrative leave’.
A senior manager at U.S. giant Citigroup’s Japanese operation left the firm late last year after his division was temporarily banned from trading linked to Libor and its Tokyo equivalent, Tibor, by the authorities.
Giant Swiss bank UBS said it had approached regulators with information over abuses of the rate-setting system.
The Libor rate is crucial, since it is a key benchmark for trillions of pounds’ worth of financial products.
The £290million fine on Barclays from the UK and U.S. authorities, issued on Wednesday, is likely to be only the beginning of a wave of punishments and civil suits for damages against other banks caught up in the global web of deceit.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/...56_306x423.jpg
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/...90_306x423.jpg
Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds are two other UK-based banks under scrutiny as part of the probe

Experts said banks might have to set aside billions of pounds in damages to cover their liabilities resulting from the conspiracy.
Former Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Lord Oakeshott said that once any criminal probe was underway, a public inquiry – like the one being conducted by Lord Leveson into media ethics – would have to be held.
‘Clearly, the worms that are now crawling out from under the stones at the banking industry are even worse than any of us thought,’ he added.
THE WORDS THAT WILL COME BACK TO HAUNT BANK CHIEF

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/...00_624x416.jpg
Speech: Bob Diamond alongside George Osborne at the Davos World Economic Forum
On 3 November 2011, Bob Diamond, chief executive of Barclays, delivered the BBC Today programme’s inaugural business lecture. Today, his words have come back to haunt him.
‘Rebuilding trust requires banks to be better citizens. I believe in this passionately.’
Within a few months of making this statement, Barclays was found guilty of a tax avoidance plot to rob taxpayers of around £500million.
Earlier in 2011, it had been found guilty of enticing elderly customers to gamble their life savings on the stock market. Around 12,000 customers lost half their savings. And this week it was found guilty of a ‘serious and widespread’ attempt to manipulate the Libor interest rates and ordered to pay a fine of £290million.
‘I know how angry customers are about issues such as payment protection insurance. That’s why we are working hard to clear claims as quickly as possible. We want to put things right.’
When a person takes out a credit card or personal loan, they buy the insurance to pay out if they lose their job, or have to stop working due to poor health. But banks, including Barclays, were selling the policies to people who did not need them. Barclays said the PPI scandal would cost them £1billion. Four months after making this speech, he admitted the bill had increased to £1.3billion.
‘But for me the evidence of culture is how people behave when no one is watching them. Our culture must be one where the interests of customers and clients are at the very heart of every decision we make, where we all act with trust and integrity.’
The Financial Services Authority this week found Barclays guilty of misconduct ‘extended over number of years’. The US Department of Justice said simply that the bank was guilty of ‘illegal conduct’ on its attempts to manipulate the Libor rate. The culture of Barclays allowed traders to manipulate Libor in a bid to make sure they scooped millions in bonuses, and to pretend the bank was in a healthier state than it was.


http://truth11.com/2012/06/29/massiv...nstream-media/

[Glass]

Tony Robinson asks if bankers are human

www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-3C_S4YI3U
Published on Jul 1, 2012 by PlanetEarthAwakens01
Actor and broadcaster, Tony Robinson has said that he no longer has any respect for British bankers and the British banking system.

Speaking after Barclays was fined £290m for manipulating banking interest rates, Robinson catalogued how the banks had let down the country for their own interests. Watch more on the Question Time website.

I've got a lot of respect for Tony Robinson. He has a great intellect. He's been mentioned on here before for his contribution to history through his many TV series including Time Team which is now also a US show. Very entertaining and informative. He also did a series where he went to the middle east and greece and other places of ancient ruins and then tells stories from the bible and other text in a captivating way.

If you get the chance to see his stuff I recommend it. Even if its on TV!

And don't lets forget him as Baldrick......in The Black Adder. He would get a lot of support in politics.

[osoab]

Of course they know. They helped change the regulations. When did this come out? One month after Lehman?

This is the October 15, 2008 comment draft on the change of Basel II rules.
http://www.bis.org/publ/bcbs140.pdf

From page 21. I used the search function for "mark to model"

694. Banks must mark-to-market as much as possible. The more prudent side of
bid/offer must be used unless the institution is a significant market maker in a
particular position type and it can close out at mid-market. Actual market prices or
observable inputs should be considered even when the market is less liquid than
historical market volumes, unless those prices are the result of a forced liquidation
or distress sale.

Marking to model
695. Where Only where marking-to-market is not possible, may banks may
mark-to-model, but where this can must be demonstrated to be prudent. Marking-to model
is defined as any valuation which has to be benchmarked, extrapolated or
otherwise calculated from a market input. When marking to model, an extra degree
of conservatism is appropriate. Supervisory authorities will consider the following in
assessing whether a mark-to-model valuation is prudent:

I had to recreate the red text and strike throughs.

[Xizang]

Truth mixed with comedy makes a great cocktail...



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wej6D...eature=related

[vacuum]

And may the Arrests begin....................

Massive global banker scandal revealed – breaking news in the Mainstream Media

Hundreds of bankers across three continents are embroiled in the interest-rate fixing scandal that has left Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond fighting to save his job.

Seems like whenever bankers massively rob the public and destroy people's lives, they are slapped with a fine which is less than the profit they made from their actions. Even if an institution is too big to fail, they can still start handing out 20 year prison sentences to those involved. Right now I'm seeing pretty much zero consequences.

[Mouse]

Seems like whenever bankers massively rob the public and destroy people's lives, they are slapped with a fine which is less than the profit they made from their actions. Even if an institution is too big to fail, they can still start handing out 20 year prison sentences to those involved. Right now I'm seeing pretty much zero consequences.

Spot on. There will not be justice until the time which we cannot predict.

[JohnQPublic]

On Lie-borgate: "Everyone Knew, And Everyone Was Doing It"





...this leads back to the thread about all the bankers leaving their positions (rats jumping the sinking ship).

I remember this from my website in May 2008:

May 29th, 2008

"...A couple of other interesting events include the announcement of a substitute for the LIBOR index. The LIBOR (London InterBank Offered Rate), has been deemed unreliable of late, even a "lie". This rate is a critical index for a lot of investment activity, especially in the derivatives area..."

This is not old news by any means. If Joe Sixpack knew, then so did a lot of other people who should have done something about it.