Baltimore vs Wall Street and the Libor Scandal

Mayor of Baltimore.  Photo : Leigh Vogel/Getty Images

This is going to be interesting:  Baltimore is lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit that alleges that banks including Barclays, Bank of America, HSBC, JP Morgan and UBS conspired to fix a set of key interest rates – the London Interbank Offered Rate, or Libor – costing the city millions in the process. Firefighters, services for the elderly, school programmes – all these and more are being cut as a direct result of the actions of colluding bankers, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake claims.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jul/19/baltimore-libor-financial-crisis

The alleged rate-rigging lowered the value of public and private pension funds and dealt a massive blow to the public's trust in the market and in the capacity of large financial institutions to police themselves. If the biggest banks were secretly rigging the market to enrich themselves at their clients' expense, how can anyone feel certain they're not being fleeced. I'm intrigued to see where all this leads -- and will other cities/entities follow suit if Baltimore is successful.