Here's an excellent essay on the Lie-bor rigging and why it matters...

"The average Joe and Jane and Jack and Jill in the street should be able to rely on the fact that those who they vote in office represent them and their interests; it's the very definition of the essence of our democratic systems. What they get instead, and increasingly so, are lawmakers and regulators who collude with private industries, which due to their size have grabbed an enormously bloated hold on political power. In the US, the UK and EU the actual say a voter gets to exercise from the ballot box has been reduced to something that fast approaches the freezing point.
The story of LIBOR is an excellent example of the inner workings of this process, and of the consequences that follow. Of course, when I label it criminal, I make a moral judgment, knowing full well at the same time that it's the lawmakers themselves who in the end define what's legal or not, and what's criminal or not." ...
"I don't think that back in 1986, when LIBOR was initiated by the British Bankers Association in light of the advent of new financial instruments such as interest rate swaps, everything that has happened between then and now, 26 years later, was foreseen and consciously instigated. I do believe, however, that the conditions were consciously set to allow for it to happen. It all just got a lot bigger than those who were in charge back then, politicians, bankers and regulators, could ever have dreamed.
Still, the underlying idea for LIBOR was always: "by the bankers, for the bankers". And if anyone involved in setting up LIBOR back in the day now wishes to claim that they had no idea that allowing banks to make up the rates which they borrowed at out of thin air, might have led to manipulation, that would insult everyone's intelligence including yours and mine. " ...
"**Let's be bluntly honest here, why don't we: both Geithner and King are simply lying. **And even if we can't prove they are lying, we can certainly state that their words lack all plausibility. That is because LIBOR is arguably the most important number in the financial industry of the past two decades, and people who reach positions such as the ones Geithner and King hold, MUST have known for a long time what was going on with LIBOR."
LIBOR, Lies and Derivatives | Finance