"The idea that prices in a $379 trillion market could be dependent on a
desk of about 20 guys in New Jersey should tell you a lot about the
absurdity of our financial infrastructure. The whole thing, in fact, has
a darkly comic element to it. "It's almost hilarious in the irony,"
says David Frenk, director of research for Better Markets, a
financial-reform advocacy group, "that they called it ISDAfix."
"Famously, one Barclays trader monkeyed with Libor submissions in
exchange for a bottle of Bollinger champagne, but in some cases, it was
even lamer than that. This is from an exchange between a trader and a
Libor submitter at the Royal Bank of Scotland:
SWISS FRANC TRADER: can u put 6m swiss libor in low pls?...
PRIMARY SUBMITTER: Whats it worth
SWSISS FRANC TRADER: ive got some sushi rolls from yesterday?...
PRIMARY SUBMITTER: ok low 6m, just for u
SWISS FRANC TRADER: wooooooohooooooo. . . thatd be awesome
Screwing around with world interest rates that affect billions of
people in exchange for day-old sushi – it's hard to imagine an image
that better captures the moral insanity of the modern financial-services
sector."
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