How Interest and Bond Values Are “Contrived”?

Investigations are underway on full scale of how bond traders and those setting interest rates have been contriving their markets.

These probes by the government can be grandiose but still iffy. The alleged procedures usually are applied to financial markets when there are no real or true market prices available. And they may produce government claims that can be hypocritical.

After all, the government depended on mark-to-market pricing during the recent subprime financial meltdown when no one really knew market values; a lack of liquidity made prices and values foggy.

At such times, you could only guess at value. So why start prosecution now, in a recession, about assumed bad pricing under vague conditions? (See the Earl J Weinreb NewsHole® comments.)