Along with virtually every major bank and finance company on Wall Street – not just GE, but J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, UBS, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Wachovia and more – these three Wall Street wiseguys spent the past decade taking part in a breathtakingly broad scheme to skim billions of dollars from the coffers of cities and small towns across America. The banks achieved this gigantic rip-off by secretly colluding to rig the public bids on municipal bonds, a business worth $3.7 trillion.
That article is not about the municipal bond market. It is certainly not about the interest rate on municipal bonds. It’s true that the quote says so, but the rest of the article says not.
Taking power away from the most powerful actors is often good a net gain for society. That doesn’t make it a “easy win”.
Matt Taibbi writing about the municipal bond market is worth reading:
That article is not about the municipal bond market. It is certainly not about the interest rate on municipal bonds. It’s true that the quote says so, but the rest of the article says not.
But that collusion becomes impractical and then impossible as the process becomes more and more transparent. This is helping that problem.
Yes, that’s why there a lot of money invested in keeping the process intransparent and making it more transparent isn’t easy.