Ever wonder WHY your interest rate on yr savings account has been so ridiculously low for so long?

[Skraxx]

Google the LIBOR scandal.

In a nutshell, banks conspired to pay us saps less interest to fund their risky schemes and associated losses.

[RKP5637]

1. Yep, what a F'en deal for the banks! They get money for little

or no interest, loan it out at a good profit, and give out some credit cards with exorbitant rates, etc. And then Bernanke says we've got to continue this bullshit for a couple of more years and all of the American Lemmings nod their heads up and down, oh, OK.

The entire fucken thing is a ripoff. And those that have made egregious profits with their schemes sail off untouched, and many continue the same BS.

The entire system is one huge ripoff for most Americans. And, this is why DHS is increasing security across the nation, surveillance cameras are going up all over the place, local police forces are being militarized. They know full well eventually the ignorant portion of America is going to eventually wake up and say WTF, and all hell is going to break out.

Sorry for the rant, but the bullshit is really getting out of control in the US.

[villager]

2. you're right -- the reason for the staged/allowed terrorist attacks was to fast track...

...the surveillance/police state ahead of the crash-and-wake-up...

[RKP5637]

4. Yep, and a lot of people are also making big bucks off of the

terrorist hype with security, surveillance, weapons, etc., etc. It's a win/win all the way around and feeding fest for TPTB and the big bucks. The rest of Americans lose out and what is so sad, is so many Americans fall for all of the BS and say thank you. The ignorance in the US today is so widespread it's sickening.

You probably already saw this article, but if not here's the link.

"A hidden world, growing beyond control"

These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.

The investigation's other findings include:

* Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.

* An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.

* In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings - about 17 million square feet of space.

* Many security and intelligence agencies do the same work, creating redundancy and waste. For example, 51 federal organizations and military commands, operating in 15 U.S. cities, track the flow of money to and from terrorist networks.

* Analysts who make sense of documents and conversations obtained by foreign and domestic spying share their judgment by publishing 50,000 intelligence reports each year - a volume so large that many are routinely ignored.

See >>> http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/a-hidden-world-growing-beyond-control/?du

[villager]

10. Sadly, it leaves you wondering if the only chance at real "hope" is when the whole

toxic, life-negating edifice crashes and burns...

[RKP5637]

11. Yep! n/t

[Sekhmets Daughter]

5. LIBOR affects what you pay

not what you are paid. The Fed is responsible for the shitty returns on savings accounts and CDs. And yes, the entire fucking thing is a ripoff. It will be interesting to see if they can turn the military against citizens...I have little doubt the police will be happy to shoot to kill as many as possible.

[RKP5637]

7. Thanks for the LIBOR clarification, etc. n/t

[Sekhmets Daughter]

3. Not quite

LIBOR, or the London Interbank Offer Rate, has more of a bearing on what you pay than what you earn...many adjustable rate mortgages were indexed to the LIBOR...

The reason you are earning virtually nothing on your savings accounts is due to the Federal Reserve Bank...if the banks can borrow money from the Fed for 0.25% they certainly don't need to pay depositors a decent interest rate on saving deposits. Greenspan dropped the rates to create "easy" money after 9/11 it was those protracted low rates that created the housing and credit bubbles which burst simultaneously. Bernanke dropped them even lower, to prop up the banks...He has kept them low in an attempt to drive people into the stock market. Bankers never seem to care what they do to People, they are all abut balance sheets. Retirees who count on the interest from CDs accumulated over a lifetime of scrimping are being particularly hard hit.

The banks who conspired in LIBOR fixing were doing it despite what it may or may not cost you...sometimes they raised the rate, sometimes they lowered it.. Barclays Bank fixers wanted the bank to look more stable than it actually was. That it led to trades that were unjustly profitable was almost an after thought.

[coalition_unwilling]

8. Awesome explanation. LIBOR affects the rates many consumers pay, as it is

used to set a baseline for many other rates like adjustible-rate credit cards.

[MrSlayer]

6. Savings account?

What the hell is that?

[RiffRandell]

9. That's exactly what I was going to say. n/t