MARKETS MANIPULATED, PETTY FINES ... YOU AND I LOSE, NO ONE CARES

I've written about market manipulation before and the deterioration of our economic system (here, here, here, and here) but it's worth writing about again.

Interest rates are being manipulated by the biggest banks and financial institutions, and the biggest losers are local governments and taxpayers. And though banks might get fined hundreds of millions - with fines reaching into the billions - the fact that the biggest financial players have made hundreds of billions, while no one gets sent to jail for deliberately rigging and manipulating markets, helps to explain why the banks do the same thing in other markets.

And the beat goes on. Check this out.

JP Morgan knew about and knowingly profited from Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme and will pay a little over $2 billion to avoid prosecution. 

The biggest banks, like HSBC, are being prosecuted for laundering money for terrorists but, apparently, can continue to doing the same thing. 

When it comes to the drug kingpins the biggest banks are also laundering money, with no repercussions (even getting bailout cash after 2008). 

Trillions in derivative markets are manipulated too, by getting people who enter data to delay entering information and a rigged system of self-reporting.

Banks continue to engage in bid-rigging, which works against local governments and the U.S. taxpayer. 

Turning a blind eye to Ponzi schemes and theft ... helping the bad guys launder money ... manipulating financial markets ...

There's more, but you get the point. The biggest banks and financial players are manipulating every market they touch, and ripping all of us off in the process. Investigations stall, with petty (for the banks) fines, which means no real changes in our economic system materializes.

If you want more examples of how screwed up our economic system is read this ... and be sure to follow the links.

- Mark