An alternative view of the great Libor scandal says it's a storm in a teacup and that everybody knew, or ought to have known, that banks will fiddle the rules when the game is refereed by their own ineffectual trade body. This line is nonsense, of course, since we're talking about ugly deceit at the heart of financial system. Even so, the revelations about HSBC almost put Barclays in the shade. Being accused by a US Senate committee of operating a money-laundering conduit for "drug kingpins and rogue nations" is as bad as it gets. What happened to the HSBC of legend, the dull bank led by upright ... (full story)