At one time, calling the large multinational banks, a cartel branded you as a conspiracy theorist. Today the banking giants are being called that and worse, not just in the major media but in court documents intended to prove the allegations as facts. Charges include racketeering (organized crime under the US Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act or RICO), antitrust violations, wire fraud, bid rigging, and price fixing. Damning charges have already been proven, and major damages and penalties assessed. Conspiracy theory has become established fact. In an article in the July 3rd, Guardian titled Private Banks Have Failed - We Need a Public Solution, Seumas Milne writes of the LIBOR rate rigging scandal admitted to by Barclay's Bank: Its already clear that the rate rigging, which depends on collusion, goes far beyond Barclay's, and indeed the City of London. This is one of the multiple scams that have become endemic in a disastrously deregulated system with inbuilt incentives for cartels to manipulate the core price of finance. It could of course have happened only in a private dominated financial sector, and makes a nonsense of the bankrupt free market ideology that still holds sway in public life. A crucial part of the explanation is the unmuzzled political and economic power of the City. Finance has usurped democracy: Bid Rigging and Rate- rigging: Bid rigging was the subject of US v Carollo, Goldberg and Grimm, a ten year suit in which the US Department of Justice obtained a judgment on May 11, against three GE Capital employees. Billions of dollars were skimmed from cities all across America, by colluding to rig the public bids on municipal bonds, a business worth $3.7 trillion. Other banks involved in the bidding scheme included Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and UBS.