Commentary on LIBOR, EU VAT rates, getting older and poorer, and past Prime Minister’s summer jobs.

The London Inter-Bank Offer Rate hence LIBOR is determined in London between banks who are asked to provide their best guess at 11 AM every banking day how much they could borrow funds for.

Shockingly, they lied. Here’s how it works.

LIBOR explained.

Related.

Financial Times -- King has shown the Bank of England is back in charge of the City
The Parlours, the ornate Regency-style rooms running from the office of the governor of the Bank of England, have provided an eerily quiet backdrop for many of the country’s turbulent financial dramas.

Boo hoo.

Guardian -- Former investment banker: 'I saw many people cry'
An ex-investment banker at a major bank tells Joris about redundancies, the recent crisis and Stockholm syndrome.

City at the centre.

Financial Times -- London serves up the good, the bad and the ugly
London is readying itself to play host to the world.

EU VAT rates.

Dark side of long life.

Independent -- Life will be longer, but poorer as we don't produce enough to pay for public services
The longer, healthier lives the British can expect to lead will not always be happier, or at least as prosperous, as we might wish to assume – and the public services we have come to enjoy and take for granted will have to change as they grow less affordable.

When there were jobs for students.

National Post -- How summers spent collecting minimum wage shaped the legacies of Brian Mulroney, Paul Martin
In a story often passed around Liberal party circles, a 14-year-old Paul Martin was driving with his father, a minister in Louis St. Laurent’s cabinet, when, out the window, he spotted a crew of farm workers picking tobacco in the hot sun. “Thank God I don’t have to do that,” the boy said.