…because its central bank could certainly use his special attention.
Philip Aldrick (Telegraph, UK) has the details on the grilling that Sir Mervyn King (head of the UK’s central bank, known as the Bank of England) received at the hands of the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee. Ben Bernake flatly contradicted King’s assertion that his bank was not informed of LIBOR shenanigans back in 2008.
King was whacked for his state of denial, but his deputy, Paul Tucker, dropped a bomb that has convinced me that the entire BoE leadership needs to be fired (same link):
Asked by Michael Fallon MP whether “deliberate misreporting” qualified as “dishonesty”, Paul Tucker, the Bank’s deputy governor, conceded: “With hindsight, yes. But it did not set alarm bells ringing at the time… I didn’t address my mind to it.”
Read that again: “it did not set alarm bells ringing at the time“.
Are you f**king kidding me?
Lest anyone forget, one of the supposed arguments in favor of TARP was the gyrations of LIBOR in the fall of 2008 (while a metric based on actual transactions, SONIA, was relatively stable; see more on that here). We may never know how much the indifference of Messrs. King and Tucker led to the $750 billion debacle.
We do know enough, however, to demand from across the pond that these gentleman be given “the sack.”
At least I do.
Cross-posted to Virginia Virtucon
[...] LIBOR is the inter-bank loan rate set by an opinion poll of leading bankers. Said bankers, as just about anyone would expect, promptly used their power to manipulate the rate, causing a major scandal in London (where the rate is announced), and a rare instance in which American regulators actually did what they were supposed to do (their British counterparts, by contrast, were a disaster). [...]
[...] Neither acquitted themselves well, to the point where I called for both of them to be sacked. [...]
[...] Neither acquitted themselves well, to the point where I called for both of them to be sacked. [...]
[...] four months ago, Paul Tucker – Deputy Governor of the Bank of England – revealed his ungodly boneheadedness regarding the LIBOR scandal. Two months later, I was stunned to read that Tucker, despite this idiocy on his record, had the [...]
[...] four months ago, Paul Tucker – Deputy Governor of the Bank of England – revealed his ungodly boneheadedness regarding the LIBOR scandal. Two months later, I was stunned to read that Tucker, despite this idiocy on his record, had the [...]