Barclays

The Libor scandal is about to get a whole lot worse.

And that's the good news...

Not only are at least 20 more big banks under investigation as part of a massive fraud to manipulate interbank lending rates that affect some $800 trillion in loans and derivatives, but the Bank of England is about to take center stage in the scandal.

And that's bad news for central banks around the world.

Well, actually, it could be good news, as in really good news, if it's the beginning of the end of what central banks do to manipulate free markets to the benefit of their only real constituents, the world's big banks.

First the good news.

It's already come out that traders at Barclays with huge derivatives positions leaned on co-workers who sit on "panels" that submit internal bank borrowing cost data to Thompson Reuters. And Reuters averages the middle lot of submissions to determine Libor (London Interbank Offered Rate) "fixings" (not my word, but actually the established nomenclature for what it apparently is that they do... as in "fix" rates). And it's all under the auspices of the British Banking Association.

What's good is that we now know for a fact that the traders (crooks?) were aided and abetted by their co-workers, the submitters (crooks?), who were overseen by managers and top executives who design most of these schemes (crooks?), and were all blessed by the British Banking Association, an illustrious association of 200 some-odd banks, whose many members (crooks?) are panel members submitting crooked (no question mark necessary) data.

Still don't get why that's good news?

Because it's proof there are crooks out there.