Perennial Bad Penny: Barclays Name Turns Up In A New York Times Article About Hydraulic Fracturing and Bankers Behaving Badly

The “Barclays” Bank name comes up again, yet one more time in unflattering context, in another New York Times article.  This one is about investment bankers behaving badly in the context of hydraulic fracturing or “fracking.”  The gist of the complaint about investment bankers is that they have been making some quick bucks treating those investing in that new drilling technology very unfairly. . .  and how that is leaving them in the financial red.

Yes, “Barclays,” that bank with the LIBOR scandal-besmirched name that now brands two Brooklyn Subway hub stations and the new Bruce Ratner/Mikhail Prokhorov sports arena, a problematic here’s a how-de-do the Times only occasionally mentions while running a great deal of promotion for that so-called “Barclays” Center.  (See: Monday, September 17, 2012, NY Times Runs 3rd Article Mentioning That, Given Scandal, Promotionally Naming Subway Stations & Arena “Barclays” Is Problematic.)

While an investment banker working for Jefferies & Company, another banking firm, gets most of the article’s negative attention, Goldman Sachs earns some focus for behaving. . . well, like Goldman, all over again.

Let’s mention that Goldman was involved in financing the “Barclays” Center with tax-exempt bonds.

The Times article, although entirely in the context of fracking, is very reminiscent of so much of what has gone before and the article pays tribute to that fact, mentioning, for instance, the, “recent credit bubble” saying:

the boom and bust in gas were driven in large part by tens of billions of dollars in creative financing engineered by investment banks like Goldman Sachs, Barclays* and Jefferies & Company.

It provides plenty of unsavory details describing how  “Wall Street deal makers . . . play a vital, though less visible, role in the nation’s surging energy production” much of it, you will conclude as you read through the article, by treating investors with calculated disregard.

For more on this as well as thoughts about what the Times this time glosses over about the detrimental effects of the fracking industry in general and the particular negative implications that loom as fracking companies now face bankruptcy see: Tuesday, October 23, 2012, Investors Discover That Fracking Costs Exceed (In The Not-So-Obvious Way) Expected Financial Benefits: What The New York Times Fails To Say.