> What this means is that we all pay higher interest rates on our loans

Manipulation is manipulation. Lots of circa 2008 rates manipulation pushed rates down, not up. Ripping off investors versus borrowers isn’t an excuse.

Except that the manipulations that banks were accused of resulted in lower libor fixing, i.e. you paying less on your loan than you should have. Investors are the one who can complain that they were underpaid.

Australian regulators waxed lyrical about how "it's different here" at the time, both sides of politics said the same.

3 years later and the banks ended up in court for interest rate rigging, all the regulators decreeing innocence from upon high now have lucrative private sector finance jobs and the relevant ministers lying through their teeth have long moved on.

No one held at all accountable for supporting a rotten industry, in fact the opposite. Banks are the new untouchables.