I see an economic diasater coming...

[sparks]

Major Wall Street and London banks who were part of the LIBOR rate-fixing conspiracy, are facing an expanding number of lawsuits that could cost them an estimated tens of billions of dollars â€" and perhaps much more.
Today's New York Times reports that there is now a pile-on of cities, states, and municipalities to lawsuits filed in Manhattan Federal Court against the banks that set the LIBOR rate, for having ripped off millions from them. These are cities and other government units that have torn up their budgets, laid people off, and in some cases been forced into bankruptcy. This is hugely explosive politically, especially if properly channeled to putting an end to the financial system which created and thrives on such misery, through LaRouche's Glass-Steagall policies.
The City of Baltimore and a pension fund in Connecticut, the City of New Britain's Firefighters' and Police Benefit Fund, are the first to sue, claiming the LIBOR manipulation cost them millions, according to NPR.
"Now, cities, states, and municipal agencies nationwide, including Massachusetts, Nassau County on Long Island, and California's public pension system, are looking at whether they suffered similar losses and are weighing legal action," the Times reports. Peter Shapiro, an investment advisor to Baltimore and other cities, told the Times that "about 75% of major cities have contracts linked to this" â€" the LIBOR fixing. "Unambiguously, state and local government agencies lost money because of the manipulation of LIBOR," said Shapiro. "The number is likely to be very, very big."
The banks targetted include Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, and Barclays. Darrell Duffie, a Stanford professor of finance, estimates that these lawsuits could result in the banks' having to pay out tens of billions of dollars, an estimate in line with recent report by Nomura Equity Research.
The Times story emphasized the losses to cities, etc. from transactions involving interest-rate swaps, just barely mentioning pension funds which lost income on their investments if interest rates were held artificially low.
The rather unlimited potential of these lawsuits was pointed out a week ago by, among others, the Seeking Alpha blog and the NY Times "Dealbook" blog. UBS and Barclays have already admitted to wrong-doing in their settlements with government authorities, and are cooperating with authorities, increasing the pressure on their co-conspirator banks to do the same. These admissions of misconduct will open the floodgates to civil lawsuits, since the proof of wrong-doing is already on the record. This also opens to door to a massive number of suits under U.S. federal anti-trust and racketeering statutes. Both the Sherman Anti-trust Act and the Racketeer-Influences and Corruption Organizations (RICO) Act allow for triple damages, and RICO furthermore allows for recovery of attorneys fees, an incentive for the filing of class-action cases.

How bout a class action suit against the bank underwriters who have been accepting mortgage insurance payments from first time homebuyers and other "risky assets" for years and never delivered in 2008 causing the taxpayers of the US to bail out banks.  Who are these flim flammers anyway.  Who regulates these thieves?

[Magluvin]

An interesting tid bit on Zombies. I watched a vid that was posted at OUR and at the end of the YT vid, it shows like 6 or 8 other vids to go watch, and I clicked on this one.
The comedy is pretty good throughout and some facts that I had not heard of, but sounds like she knows what she is talking about. ;]

The link is a series of vids starting with this one. Then I watched the next one and this girl is funny.  Good comeedee.  And interesting facts and questions along the way.

For example, the second vid she talks about mammal sea life. and says "why dont you just evolve already, get out of the water and get an apartment..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjEqSBbI8Zc&list=UUfkPDHYKTXF0H9U-tdRH5vQ&index=3&feature=plcp

Mags

[triffid]

I'm with you on that Sparks,My brother paid $1500 on his mortgage(lenders) insurance and had it written into the loan.When he died and defaulted on the loan as a result.The house was not paid off so the house would go to his daughter.Yet my brother could not get a loan without forking out $1500 in the beginning.That $1500 was paid to make sure the lender would not lose money in case of default.Death is default?Right?No one else made payments(in the family).Its strange how they(the banks and media) are so quiet on this issue.triffid

[triffid]

Hi Mags,too many zombies ,so little time.I played a zombie too in my lifetime.When I bought my first house I agreed to pay 115,000 dollars total on a $35,000 house over a period of 30 years.It ended up over 100,000 dollars paid out over 17 years with late payments and other fees.I owed about $17000 on it still when I had to sell it for $30,000(bank lending the money set the price)While taxes and insurance said house was $52,000 to replace.So I missed out on a 17,000 dollar payday.Because of banks.
My fault because I played the zombie part.triffid

[sparks]

@Mags    Good to see your still here!  Forrest and Ramset too.

@All

    I believe I made a mistake in calling the bank underwriters thieves.  I forgot about reading an article where the British royalty reported that Bush held up the claims payments to the US banks until the bailout bill passed.  The underwriters had the reserves in offshore instituitions but Bush blocked the disbursement to US banks making claims.  This increased the debt load of the US taxpayers who would have to payback the central bank cartel with interest for what the international underwriters were contracted to payback.  The underwriters benefits were based on contracted repayment for much less than the default mortgages face value so banks of choice were bailed out in great excess of what the insurance would have paid.  Can you impeach a non-presiding president thereby any bills he signed off on are null and void?  If he wasn't president then anything he did is not legal and binding.   They impeach Clinton for getting some head?