Wisdom in fragments

The economy is in the doldrums and likely to worsen. The UK economy has performed worse than most Euro Zone countries, and the calls for a change, of course, are becoming pretty loud. The government's economic strategy is clearly in disarray.

Former Federal Reserve Member & Leading Labor Economics Scholar

Not all financial contracts are created equal. We should not assume that there is one single benchmark for all types of financial transactions. There are certain transactions that should be based on market rates, and others which call for the kind of benchmark that LIBOR provides.

MIT Finance Professor & Pioneer of Quantitative Finance & Behavioral Economics

It's definitely affected the psychology of the marketplace. It could not have come at a worse time. We have to deal with this expeditiously and make the system more robust to these kind of issues.

MIT Finance Professor & Pioneer of Quantitative Finance & Behavioral Economics

Once you're able to reduce the human element, and automate the reporting of these statistics- you will be greatly reducing the potential for misbehaviour. This is where regulators can leverage technology, reduce their burden.

MIT Finance Professor & Pioneer of Quantitative Finance & Behavioral Economics

It certainly plays a much bigger role than was ever intended to. A number of financial institutions and contracts rely on LIBOR as the benchmark by which other rates are set. I don't think it was ever intended that LIBOR would play such a central role between so many institutions and contracts.

MIT Finance Professor & Pioneer of Quantitative Finance & Behavioral Economics

Financial markets depend on trust, and we had precious little trust as it was. The LIBOR scandal has done nothing to restore that trust. We have to do a lot more work on our regulations, procedures and regulators to re-establish that level of trust.

MIT Finance Professor & Pioneer of Quantitative Finance & Behavioral Economics

They used two wires hooked up to a car battery to give me electric shocks. They used electric stun-guns on my genitals twice. I thought I would never see my family again.

They forced me to undress. Then they started squeezing my fingers with pliers. They put staples in my fingers, chest and ears. I was only allowed to take them out if I spoke. The nails in the ears were the most painful.

The guards hung me by my wrists from the ceiling for eight days…. After a few days of hanging, being denied sleep, it felt like my brain stopped working. I was imagining things. My feet got swollen on the third day. I felt pain that I have never felt in my entire life.

That experience [of being tortured] has altered my whole life. You can never be the same person and anything you do is in reference to that moment. I have never been able to pass it.

China for example, aims to increase their buying by 400,000 barrels a day in the last quarter of 2012, and will be adding over 750,000 barrels of new refining capacity. That economic engine is still turning.

We have open and transparent pricing through our futures exchange- that means price is determined by buyers and sellers and not an 'official' selling price set by a producer.

Even though Brent has been successful in terms of becoming a larger and more liquid benchmark, it is the 'least worst' option.

The DME was a bit of a unique experiment, we created an exchange before all parts of the ecosystem were in place.

You are only ever one click away from looking at another alternative… The ability for the consumer to shop-around has made it difficult for some operators to realise the need for transparency in pricing… particularly when your product is built around opacity.

The consumer is far better educated today than he ever was. Consumers don't need to rely on intermediaries to tell them what is good or bad- people are social, they share information with friends and strangers, and go to a broader community for help and assistance.