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Arginald Valleywater wrote:

> Are you going to stand for election next time round DJ?

Yeah, DJ could stand for the, "I WILL BORE YOU TO DEATH PARTY!"

"Can't you see, even dogs were better off under New Labour, you canine clown....HOW DARE YOU YAWN AT ME!!!"

[img]http://image.shutterstock.com/display_p ... 433400.jpg[/img]

No

Thanks Jim

It's always nice to know what the !clown! view is!

If you want, I will explain the question at the start of the thread using pictures. You seem keen on them.

Minimal impact? Haha

The Libor rate affects mortgages, student loans, business loans, credit card transactions - they affect everyone and the rate fix has been going on for at least seven years.

As for Labour and their involvement, and I doubt you'd be downplaying this if the Tories had been in power in the years 2005-present, we'll find out if they have anything to hide during the Parliamentary enquiry.

"The Libor rate affects mortgages, student loans, business loans, credit card transactions - they affect everyone and the rate fix has been going on for at least seven years."

This thread is about the accusation that Labour were involved in trying to keep the Libor rate down in 2008-2009 as part of dealing with the global banking collapse and is an attempt to understand the impact of that specific action, if true. It is not about the general fiddling that went on for many years amongst traders who would fiddle the rate up or down depending on what deals they were doing.

All the things you mention e.g. mortgages, student loans, business loans, credit card transactions would either be unaffected by reductions in Libor rate in the sense that they would be linked to Bank of England interest rate or alternatively if they were linked to Libor they would be reduced as a result of any fiddle to keep them down. So in that sense it would be beneficial to Joe Public in all the areas you mention or have no impact.

You seem to have not noticed my final comment

"Still doesn't make it right, of course!"

Separately there was a lot of fiddling going on by traders up and down to make deals. This would have had more of an impact on consumers potentially but it is still anybody's guess what the overall impact would have been on Joe Public because some banks would have been fiddling the rate up, some down, depending on what they were trying to do.

In terms of impact on the consumer, the whole issue of the global collapse, misselling of PPI, misselling of complex securities to small businesses has I suspect had a much bigger impact on Joe Public. That is why a judicial inquiry ala Leveson is needed into all of this, not just the Labour government but the Thatcher, Major and coalition governments alongside the Serious Fraud Squad inquiry into Libor fiddling.

"As for Labour and their involvement, and I doubt you'd be downplaying this if the Tories had been in power in the years 2005-present"

To repeat I have said it was wrong if it is proven Labour got involved to fiddle the rates down. All I am trying to do is understand what the potential impact was of keeping the Libor rate low on Joe Public and I do not see any big impact at all in financial terms.

But not a charmless slimy arsehole like Balls though !!

Maybe this incident had little effect on people finantially. But what if they were previously hiking the interest rate? How do we know? I just don't trust these people anymore.

"But what if they were previously hiking the interest rate?"

As I have said before in this thread, the majority of products taken by Joe Public aren't necessarily affected by the Libor rate anyway.

Secondly there were a number of banks involved in fiddling the Libor rate. SOmetimes it would have been up; sometimes it would have been down. And these guys are doing it to make some money on billion dollar deals, not the sort of sums Joe Public would have e.g. a 50K pension pot.

You said, re DJ:

......As for Labour and their involvement, and I doubt you'd be downplaying this if the Tories had been in power in the years 2005-present, we'll find out if they have anything to hide during the Parliamentary enquiry".....

The understatement of the century lol.

If the Tories had been in power during the scandal, David Johnson would be now crazed with indignation and rage. He would be stamping around BGAFD spitting venom at all and sundry! He would be demanding every possible enquiry be engaged and inventing new ones to bring the perpetrators to justice.He would be demanding their summary public execution, in fact I do believe he would be so outraged that his head would explode like the man in this movie clip:



But of course it was New Labour who was in power, so let's, errm, quietly brush it all under the carpet!!wink!

Sir Mervyn has a lot to answer. Time he went! Always erodes confidence and talks down the economy while providing the banks with more and more cash that they keep. Why can't they lend direct to business. Or set up another bank to do that?