Thanks dude - not only do I have a Masters in Maths, I also spend many years working in these markets.

If you want to be completely and unreasonably anal (and clearly you do posting as AC), then yes you are technically correct

All banks SHOULD be giving the same rate given they are all submitting the same market price (unless they are deliberately manipulating)- ie they are not submitting what THEY WOULD trade at given their position/risk but where the MARKET IS trading at.

It is not like a market consensus of a CPI forecast or a companies earning forecast that has a noticeable distribution. This is more like asking 18 banks what the USD/EUR market exchange rate is at exactly midday - you will get answers that vary only on a little based on timing

So yes there will can be just a little variation in practice but not always and even then typically not enough to really notice or bother with unless the market is in free-fall (eg the GFC days)

Hence the important part of the article - they need to encourage/coerce/COLLUDE WITH OTHERS to manipulate the market

Rubbish ... no-one would be THAT stupid ...

It is the average of the middle 10 out of 18 responses, with the upper and lower 4 eliminated.

So you need AT LEAST 5 out of 18 banks manipulating in a single direction to have any impact AND you need an asymmetric level of manipulation (low and high) so that the competing manipulations are not averaged out.

I only said "drive national macro-economic outcomes" ... I never said anything about benefiting any individual, middle class or otherwise

But, of course, you can interpret that however you want and turn it into a politic debate on which "macro-economic outcomes" are the right ones if you wish ...

But in this case it was not the US markets at play ... but I do tend to agree with the general point

However, I think the bigger problem is asymmetric risk/reward these markets provide to the individuals vs the corporations. For the most part, these guys are playing with other people's money and a win results in big bonuses, while a loss really has limited consequences to the individual - it really is set up to encourage individuals to push the boundaries.

It's really the same lesson as Lance Armstrong ... don't break the rules and you'll be a nobody - do break the rules and there is untold riches, as well as a pretty good chance you'll never be caught ... even if you do get caught, you are still better off than if you hadn't broken the rules to start with ...

Only two solutions really - reduce the rewards or increase the cost of getting caught ... either requires regulation.

How do you figure that?

In a practical sense, it results in the same outcome for sure ...

But fundamentally? Central banks move rates to drive national macro-economic outcomes whilst LIBOR contributors were contributing to a surveys for individual gain (either as a person or corporation) ... those fundamentals are quite different.

What?

- Thrift Shop (the #1 song) has been played on Aussie radio for 3 months and was #1 in the ARIA charts a few weeks ago
- Little Talks was #7 and is still #14 now
- Sweet Nothing peaked at #2
- I Love it peaked at #3
- Feel the Love peaked at #3

And Same Love is the current #1 single, so make that at least 6 songs!

So at least 30% have been Top 10 songs and you haven't heard any of them???

Not what the OP said ...

On a city-by-city basis JJJ is typically #3 across the key demographics of 18-39 ie eliminating the AM talk stuff ... as a single national station, its national audience is larger than any individual single-city station.

WTF? What list are you reading?

Not a song contest which is a vote on a small number of contestants ... It is a music poll based on music released on the last 12 months.

Eurovision and every TV talent contest would have more votes - but that is not what is being discussed.

As soon as 1 or 2 mainstream players support it ... my bet would be mid-to-late 2013

What a stupid comment ... of course, better compression algorithms can give better quality (than an inferior algorithm) for a given size - its not an illusion

What does that actually mean in English?

How should make a free implementation? And how do they do that when they have to pay royalties?
Who is $BIGCO? And who do they pay a license fee to? MPEG-LA?

Are you saying companies so be allowed royalty free use of patents if the resultant software is free? Quite different than requiring free implementation

Of course the AC missed the point and goes the easy troll ...

Australia is a western country by most measures - linguistic, cultural, political, economic - if not geographic ... hence why the OP did not say western hemisphere.

In the early AM hours of North America and Europe, Australia is one of the few western country with a significant online population ... so yes on a 24hr forum/site, you will get Australian stories when Australia is one for few nation that are awake!

Also there is a larger proportion on the weekend for some reason - one could guess that perhaps there is a cultural difference where some countries like to use Slashdot on their employer time but not their own - whereas Australian nerds are nerds all week long.

This surprises me with the number of people saying the same ... and assuming most are US-based.

Just looking at the top 10:
Mackelmore was #1 Billboard Hot 100
Of Monster and Men hit #25 ( and #1 on the alternative charts)
Mumford & Sons have been all over the charts / awards
Tame Impala won Rolling Stone album of the year
Frank Ocean has 6 Grammy nominations on the go

Then there are other 'mainstream' artists:
- Calvin Harris
- The Black Keys
- Skrillex

I suspect it is less about age and more about:
- American music being dominated by a limited subset of artists
- Australian music being a "broadly equal" fusion of US artists, European artists and local artists
- Triple J being an alternative music station

Nope - it's like saying someone spoiled American Idol or Eurovision by crunching social media data.

Difference here is that the social media implementation was designed to share votes with Facebook friends only and the analysis involved 'hacking' the URLs ...