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© telegraph.co.uk
Okay, so the Associated Press (AP) just reported that "Barclays and its subsidiaries have agreed to pay more than $450 million to settle charges that it tried to manipulate key global interest rates."

That might seem like a lot of money, but remember that this is basically the shareholders of the bank footing the bill for criminal actions of the bank officers

. According to the AP:
The rates affect the costs of hundreds of trillions of dollars in loans and investments such as bonds, auto loans and derivatives.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission said Wednesday that the incidents occurred between 2005 and 2009 and sometimes took place daily.

The CFTC said Barclays senior management and multiple traders were involved and that they coordinated with traders at other banks to make false submissions.
Wow, that's some pretty hefty manipulation of international rates: "trillions of dollars."

But will anyone go to jail for this even though "Barclays also agreed to pay $160 million as part of an agreement with the fraud section of the Justice Department's criminal unit on a related matter"? That means it was a prosecutable crime, but the Department of Justice let Barclays off with a fine and held no individuals criminally responsible for premeditated fraud that ripped off perhaps millions of people engaged in financial transactions.

But buck yourself up, the head honchos at Barclays want us to know that they are repentant: "Barclays President Bob Diamond also announced that he and three senior bank executives were waiving any bonus for the year as a result of the case." Of course, they are not waving their millions of dollars in salaries nor are they going to do any jail time or even community service -- and their police record remains clean, unlike many Americans who kite a couple of checks.

So this is the take-away from Barclays ripping off the international financial system with intentional deception: if you get caught with marijuana and are a minority, you are likely to do jail time in many areas of our nation, but if you engage in explicit fraud involving trillions of dollars you remain a pillar of the untouchable global elite.

Are there two standards of justice: one for the oligarchy and one for the rest of us? Just ask the top officers at Barclays. But they might not answer right away. They are probably vacationing in Barbados or Monaco.