We are now all criminals.

If I said to you the government could make you and I criminals as proxies for what large corporations did in the past you'd say I was a fucking lunatic.

RBS fixed Libor for ages, when finally discovered they were only given a civil demand for compensation in the UK (I think a fine can only be for a crime), and as 81% nationalised guess who's paid it? Yes, we the taxpayers. You couldn't make it up better than this.
If you extend this to the next level if any of the staff were to be found guilty of crimes they could convict random citizens instead as we are now legally responsible for their PAST actions, as this has set a precedent. Don't rely on me, check out the law of precedent. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/9853088/RBS-Libor-fine-what-the-authorities-said.html

The mafia couldn't have done it any better, pay a corrupt company for ripping off its customers, and when they then get busted for cheating (but avoid criminal charges as the system was already fixed) and fined then because they've been temporarily nationalised guess who pays the fine? The taxpayer.

Now this is a precedent. If the public can be made to pay someone else's fine from something which happened before they were responsible for it, they have changed the legal principles in a number of fundamental ways. Firstly till now it was impossible to be responsible for something which has been backdated. If you change the law to create a responsibility today for any act in civil or criminal law (such as paying for bank fraud) it can only apply to acts committed after the date of that decision. Here the people are paying for something which was carried out for over a decade before it was even discovered, and by sheer chance (ie in normal circumstances the entire issue would have remained 'in house') because the public now own most of RBS, they have become entirely responsible for their actions, past and present. Not content with changing the meaning of marriage (not fraud but tyranny) David Cameron's reign has now rewritten the law to allow (like Jesus in fact) the public to take on the responsibility for others' civil (and potentially criminal, as in every other field the Libor fixing would be obtaining financial benefit by deception under the Theft Act) wrongs, potentially opening the door (with no rewriting of a single statute as using common law principles) to any other example in the future. In theory, should this not be seen as a single act of phenomenal theft (the British public are paying the lion's share of someone else's £392 million fine), which in itself is an incredible act of robbery, but without a successful legal challenge (I see none, not even an attempted challenge) will in future be able to nationalise any company they like and make us pay for any act they have previously committed forever.

Of course in the case of RBS it could be argued that when the government kindly paid their executives not to lose their jobs and bonuses (they did not reduce when taken over) in exchange for limited temporary management privileges, they also took on their debts. Of course taking on the debts of a massive private company as a government is sheer lunacy already, but when these then include legal obligations through fraud, the general public have literally become responsible for someone else's criminal acts. I say acts, not crimes, as rigging interest rates has become decriminalised, where altering the market to remove money from investors only becomes a civil wrong when carried out by banks. Yes, that was exactly what happened, as with carbon trading, which before Bill Clinton and Al Gore's activities were imitated worldwide, were actually both criminal and applied to companies at all levels, as the Enron board went down for a long time for doing it. But here for reasons only known by the government and associated lawyers, who declared to the press the day Libor fixing went public, 'This is not actually a crime'. I haven't seen the legislation but must exist otherwise the claim couldn't have lasted more than a day or two before some lawyer spotted it.

Meanwhile George Osborne says that the taxpayer will not pay any of the fine owed by the 81% public owned bank, presumably taking it out of the remainder and making sure the accounts do not cross over. Apparently. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/9852260/RBS-traders-tried-to-fly-above-law-as-taxpayer-owned-bank-hit-with-392m-fine.html

However, on the legal side, RBS (for doing exactly the same thing) have been convicted of a crime in Japan, and had a suspended sentence in the US, withholding actual prosecution if they don't do anything like it in future. That's OK then.