VIA GLENN:
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York said Tuesday it had received word as early as 2007 from the British bank Barclays about problems with the benchmark interest rate that underpins much of global lending.
Barclays has admitted to rigging Libor, an interest rate that sets the standard for lending in a wide variety of markets — from corporate bonds to credit cards and some mortgages.
Know your investment banks: Europe’s ongoing debt crisis is causing stock prices to slide at investment banks around the world. Presented here are the top nine banks and how they have been performing since the 2008 U.S. financial crisis.
On Tuesday, the New York Fed said that it had received “occasional anecdotal reports from Barclays of problems with Libor” in late 2007, as the financial crisis was starting.
The disclosure came as Washington policymakers began to increase their scrutiny of the role of regulators in the scandal surrounding the London interbank offered rate, or Libor....
... Barclays chief executive Robert E. Diamond said the bank had repeatedly brought to the attention of U.S. regulators — as well as U.K. regulators — the problems that the bank was experiencing in the Libor market.
He said the bank’s warnings to regulators that Libor was artificially low did not lead to action.
Barclays’ regulator in the United States is the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which was run at the time by current Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner.
GEITHNER SHOULD RESIGN.
OBAMA SHOULD DEMAND IT.
