This post is somewhat arcane and mysterious. It really should not be. The story is actually straightforward: A major bank is convicted of manipulating interest rates at the expense of those who borrowed money at those rates. One of the Commissioners for the Securities and Exchange Commission described the crime in these terms:
“Deutsche Bank’s illegal conduct involved nearly a decade of lying, cheating, and stealing. This criminal conduct was pervasive and widespread, involving dozens of employees from Deutsche Bank offices including New York, Frankfurt, Tokyo, and London. Deutsche Bank’s traders engaged in a brazen scheme to defraud Deutsche Bank’s counterparties and the worldwide financial marketplace by secretly manipulating LIBOR.[7] The conduct is appalling. It was a complete criminal fraud upon the worldwide marketplace.”
There is a punishment for such fraudulent action in a law called the Securities Offering Reform of 2005: the criminal entity should lose its special status as an offerer of capital and be forced to compete with offerers of capital without a large asset base or highly regarded reputation. Except in this case, the bank is a very large bank (Deutsche Bank) and is not penalized in this fashion because a special waiver is granted to the bank. In fact, no person is the bank is penalized either through jail time or fine.
Just make sure you don’t go for a walk in Baltimore. Or sell open cigarettes in New York City. For those crimes, one will be executed.
Russia has just paraded in public its newest tank, the T-14 Armata, which is designed to replace the current Russian tank, the T-90. Russian tanks, like Russian aircraft, are especially formidable and the Armata is considered to be the equal to the best in the NATO arsenal. The new tank was shown in parades in Moscow celebrating the 70th anniversary of the ending of World War II. Unlike earlier celebrations, many of Russia’s allies in the war are boycotting this year’s celebrations because of Russian actions in Ukraine. The Russian-NATO arms race heats up.
Expo 2015 opened in Milan, Italy on 1 May. The exposition is a celebration of architectural design and culture and shares an incredible legacy with historical world expos including the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, and the Space Needle. There were, however, strong protests in Milan at the extravagance of the expo against the backdrop of the dismal European economy right now. The photographs in the Atlantic are stunning.
Happy Cinco de Mayo!!!!
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