Six major banks were recently fined $4.3 billion by regulatory agencies for rigging foreign exchange (FOREX) benchmarks at “crucial moments” on given trading days during 2008 though 2013.

The investigation by four regulatory agencies determined that traders from the big banks manipulated “two key exchange rates, or ‘fixes,’ set each day. One of them, the WM/Reuters fix, is based on trading in a one-minute window around 4pm every day in London. The other, the ECB fix, is a snapshot of the market at 2:15pm in Frankfurt.” (Source: Bloomberg, Nov 12, 2014)

According to the Wall Street Journal (Nov 12, 2014), “Improprieties in the $5.3-trillion-a-day foreign-exchange market have the potential to touch broad swaths of the public. Every time companies or individuals do business in a foreign currency, they are subject to the whims of a market that regulators said has been rife with misconduct by a group of bank traders.”

Here are the banks and the fines levied against each by the four regulating agencies:

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During the very time that these six banks had been rigging FOREX benchmarks (2008-2013), they had also been receiving essentially free liquidity via the Fed Discount Window, as well as billions of dollars in bailouts and emergency loans through the various credit facilities created by Federal Reserve.

Ultimately, these free-money rescue operations are extracted from the hides of U.S. taxpayers, and foreign countries whose currencies are pegged to the Dollar, through an insidious Dollar debasement effect.

The six major banks received billions through the various lending facilities created by the Federal Reserve (dollar figures identify Peak Amount of Debt extended by the Fed for a given date):
Citigroup    $99.5B on 1/20/2009
JP Morgan $68.6B on 10/1/2008
UBS            $77.2B on 11/28/2008
RBS            $84.5B on 10/10/2008
HSBC             $3.7B on 3/12/2009
Bank of America $91.4B on 2/26/2009

Six major banks that rigged FOREX ‘fixes,’  received billions of dollars in Fed (read: U.S. taxpayer) bailouts – to help them regain solvency and financial “health.”.

U.S. citizens deserve nothing less than the same access to their own money – in the form of Fed-based liquidity extensions – to help American families regain their own financial “health.”.

The conduit: a Citizens Credit Facility.

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2015 – $70,000 per U.S. Citizen                                                  The Leviticus 25 Plan 2015 (688)