Gold and Silver Are Manipulated Today, Switzerland’s financial regulator (FINMA) found “serious misconduct” and a “clear attempt to manipulate precious metals benchmarks” by UBS employees in precious metals trading, particularly with silver. Reuters reports: Swiss regulator FINMA said on Wednesday that it found a “clear attempt” to manipulate precious metals benchmarks during its investigation into precious metals and foreign exchange trading at UBS … Gold and silver prices have been “fixed” in daily conference calls by the powers-that-be. Bloomberg reported last December: It is the participating banks themselves that administer the gold and silver benchmarks.................... The Big Picture The experts say that big banks will keep manipulating markets unless and until their executives are thrown in jail for fraud. Why? Because the system is rigged to allow the big banks to commit continuous and massive fraud, and then to pay small fines as the “cost of doing business”. As Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz noted years ago: “The system is set so that even if you’re caught, the penalty is just a small number relative to what you walk home with. The fine is just a cost of doing business. It’s like a parking fine. Sometimes you make a decision to park knowing that you might get a fine because going around the corner to the parking lot takes you too much time.” Indeed, Reuters points out today: Switzerland’s regulator FINMA ordered UBS, the country’s biggest bank, to pay 134 million francs ($139 million) after it found serious misconduct in both foreign exchange and precious metals trading. It also capped bonuses for dealers in both units at twice their basic salary for two years. Capping bonuses at twice base salary? That’s not a punishment … it’s an incentive. Experts say that we have to prosecute fraud or else the economy won’t ever really stabilize. But the government is doing the exact opposite. Indeed, the Justice Department has announced it will go easy on big banks, and always settles prosecutions for pennies on the dollar (a form of stealth bailout. It is also arguably one of the main causes of the double dip in housing. And there is no change in the air.) Indeed, the government doesn’t even force the banks to admit any guilt as part of their settlements. Wall Street has manipulated virtually every other market as well – both in the financial sector and the real economy – and broken virtually every law on the books. And they will keep on doing so until the Department of Justice grows a pair. The criminality and blatant manipulation will grow and spread and metastasize – taking over and killing off more and more of the economy – until Wall Street executives are finally thrown in jail. It’s that simple … Jon
Posted on: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 22:36:36 +0000
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