The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap Highlight

The Bank of England fined Barclays $453 million and essentially demanded that Diamond resign, which he did, in the spring of 2012. On his way out, Diamond released emails and other documents suggesting that the Bank of England not only knew about these manipulations but had actually encouraged them during the fall of 2008, right around the time of the Lehman bankruptcy. The ostensible justification for the BOE wanting banks to suppress LIBOR at that time is that it made banks look healthier and prevented a worldwide panic. But there was no excuse at all for the manipulations that Barclays had engaged in prior to 2008, the “bottle of Bollinger” manipulations, which were done purely to make more money for Barclays and its traders.