What a difference a revisionist market rally makes. Remember when everyone was involved in Libor manipulation? No? Curious what a few hundred DJIA points will do especially when the corporate revenues and supporting them simply are not there, and one goes all in on multiple expansion. One entity which, however, has not forgotten about Lieborgate is Pimco parent and Europe's largest insurance firm, Allianz. And they are not happy: "Europe's biggest insurer, Allianz, is worried about the role central banks may have played in an interest rate rigging scandal that has enveloped some leading international lenders, the insurer's chief financial officer said on Friday. "We do not find it funny, what has happened, in particular the arising implication that it is not just the banks but central banks being involved in this," Oliver Baete told a conference call with analysts. "That really gives us cause for concern," Baete added." Of course, neither the ECB nor the FED could care much, considering that Allianz would be immediately insolvent if the same central banks who manipulated Libor stopped manipulating interest rates... which is implicitly what Allianz is unhappy about.
From Reuters [11]:
An Allianz spokeswoman said Baete was speaking generally and declined to specify which central banks Baete had in mind.
More than a dozen global lenders, including Citigroup, JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank, are under investigation over whether they manipulated a benchmark interest rate called Libor in an attempt to make profits or hide weaknesses.
Royal Bank of Scotland on Friday said it had dismissed staff in the scandal, while rival Barclays was fined $453 million by U.S. and UK regulators last month.
But banking regulators, too, have come under scrutiny.
The Bank of England's deputy governor, Paul Tucker, was ensnared in the scandal when Barclays released notes suggesting Tucker may have condoned the rigging. Tucker has denied the allegations.
Sadly in a world hijacked by central bankers, statements such as this one which reflect the occasional disillusionment with the ubiquitous Stockholm Syndrome will not be allowed and for all intents and purposes will soon disappear, as the central banks make it very clear that those who are benefiting from central planning should not bite the hands that feed them. This certainly includes Bill Gross who has been rather vocal in calling the global capital market a Ponzi scheme for nearly as long as Zero Hedge itself has.