Diamonds Aren’t Forever

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Diamonds Aren’t Forever This morning, Barclays’ CEO, Robert Diamond, resigned after coming under intense pressure resulting from a UK and US probe that showed his traders blatantly sought to manipulate the London Interbank Offered Rate, or LIBOR, to disguise the high cost of the bank’s own funding and to pad the profits of certain traders. In the wake of the scandal, the chairman resigned and the new chief operating officer is also expected to resign. Barclays is now without a leadership team, and the board is likely scrambling to determine if internal solutions exist or if they will need to launch searches to fill the seats. This scandal comes after JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon was grilled on Capitol Hill over bad trades with losses that will likely top out over $9 billion, based on reports in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times four days ago. I must admit, I am not a big fan of government regulation but these recent, serious lapses in management and self-control do not make my case any easier.