????一個夫妻檔創辦了一個網站，專門揭批華爾街的丑聞。這個網站上關于倫敦銀行同業拆借利率（Libor）和巴克萊（Barclays）的最新爆料讓人哭笑不得，卻又擔心不已。

????巴克萊最近承認包括高管在內的多名雇員參與了操縱Libor。而僅僅在3個月之前，主持制定這一重要利率的英國銀行家協會（British Bankers' Association，BBA）組織了一個指導委員會，負責判定Libor定價是否存在問題。當時巴克萊受到調查的傳聞已經廣為人知，但它還是被指定加入了這個委員會。

????英國銀行家協會在宣布委員會成立時宣稱，“有關方面”也“參與”了該項目。既然如此，就應該有人提醒一下英國銀行家協會：巴克萊也許并不適合出現在Libor的誠信指導委員會中。這一事件讓人們再次懷疑銀行是否真正有決心改正Libor的問題。

????英國銀行家協會發言人稱對Libor的審查工作還在進行中，目前為止，巴克萊仍未被踢出指導委員會。她還說，該委員會提出建議的具體日期尚未確定，不過由于“近來的事態發展”，日期已經推后。

????英國銀行家協會其實并不需要監管機構告訴他們Libor出了問題，而巴克萊就是原因之一。關于巴克萊到底是一塵不染還是白璧微瑕的著名討論就是出自巴克萊和該官員的對話。

????2008年底，英國銀行家協會吹噓自己已經實施了強化的治理和“審查”程序，確保Libor不會被操縱。然而巴爾的摩市在對巴克萊和其它銀行的集體訴訟中稱：對Libor的操縱一直持續到2010年年中。這些天來，Libor仍然用于為各種消費者及商業信貸設定利率，但是受到了真正的審查。大家也許會想，這下銀行總該老實了吧，Libor應該可信了吧。您還是太天真了。《紐約時報》（New York Times ）的一篇新文章檢查了最晚一直到今年6月份銀行所遞交的Libor數據，結果發現仍然有值得懷疑的地方。

????所以如果想要改善Libor的信譽，指派巴克萊去參與增強其誠信的委員會恐怕根本沒什么好處。但真正的問題不在于巴克萊，Libor的問題更深遠。本周早些時候，我的同事Nin-Hai Tseng 撰文細數了修正Libor定價缺陷的四大途徑（fix還有操縱的意思——譯注）。

????目前的Libor定價形式不再可行，其真正原因和華爾街問題不斷的原因一樣，它和自我監管的失敗密不可分。失敗之前雖然可行，而一旦失敗就再也無法修復。還記得伯尼?麥道夫嗎，對，就是那個大騙子，他曾經領導過一個小組，目的是實現納斯達克交易公司的自我監管。我完全相信，他有足夠的信譽擔任那個重要的角色。

????巴克萊是唯一承認參與了操縱Libor的銀行，但幾乎所有參與Libor定價的銀行都在接受調查。只要銀行參與進來，那就是自我監管，英國銀行協會的改革就無法取信于人。唯一可行的途徑就是引入某種程度的外部監督，巴克萊已經同意這個方案，其它銀行也有望跟進。

????看來這是Libor丑聞到目前為止給出的重要信息之一。自我監管的市場幾乎總是會逐步過渡到實質上的監管。那么何不從一開始就這么干呢？

????A husband and wife team who have launched a website critical of Wall Street practices have uncovered an ironic, and troubling, tidbit about Libor and Barclays.

????Just three months before Barclays admitted that numerous employees at the bank including top executives participated in manipulating Libor, and long after it was widely known to be under investigation, the British Bankers' Association, which oversees the key lending rate, named Barclays to a steering committee in charge of deciding if there was a problem with the rate.

????In announcing the committee, the BBA said that the "Authorities" were "engaged" with the initiative. So someone should have tipped off the BBA to the fact that Barclays was probably not the best bank to put on the Libor's integrity steering committee. It once again raises the question of how much bankers are really determined to correct the problem with Libor.

????A BBA spokesperson said the review of Libor was ongoing. And so far, she said, Barclays has not been removed from the steering committee leading the review. She said there is no date as to when the steering committee would make its suggestions, but that date has been pushed back due to "recent events."

????The BBA, of course, didn't need regulators to tell them that there was a problem with Libor and that Barclays was part of it. The famous discussion of whether Barclays was either clean-clean or clean-dirty was between Barclays and a BBA official.

????In late 2008, the BBA trumpeted that it had enacted enhanced governance and "scrutiny" procedures to insure Libor was not being manipulated. Yet, Baltimore's class-action suit against Barclays and others claims that Libor manipulation continued well into 2010. With all the actual scrutiny of Libor these days, you would assume that the banks are finally playing it straight with the rate, and that Libor, which is still regularly used to set interest on all kinds of consumer and business loans, should be believed. And even there you could be wrong. A recent article from the New York Times looked at the Libor submissions banks made as recently as June, and found reason to question them.

????So if you were trying to make Libor believable, naming Barclays to a group that would strengthen its integrity probably won't help. But Barclays isn't really the problem. There's a bigger problem with Libor. Earlier this week, my colleague Nin-Hai Tseng wrote a story detailing four ways to fix Libor (in the good way).

????The real reason Libor will never work, though, in its present form, and why Wall Street always runs into problems, has to do with the failure of self-regulation. It works until it doesn't, and then once it doesn't there is no way to fix it. Remember that Bernie Madoff, Bernie Madoff, once headed up a panel that was supposed to self-regulate Nasdaq trading firms. I'm sure he completed that role with integrity.

????Barclays is the only bank to have admitted it participated in manipulation. But nearly every bank involved in the Libor process is under investigation. So as long as you were going include the banks, which is the definition of self-regulation, there was no way the BBA's reforms were ever going to be viewed as credible. The only way to do that is to impose some level of outside monitoring, which is exactly what Barclays has agreed to and others are likely to as well.

????And that seems to be one of the key take-aways of the Libor scandal so far. Self-regulating markets are almost always forced to morph into actual regulated ones. So why not go that way from the start.