Thread: MF Global and its 1066 unemployed

Moron preached how leverage is what tipped our economic crisis of a cliff...then takes his new company into a leveraged state than Lehman Bro.

what an idiot...I'm sure he got a sick severance package too

What I heard of the testimony made me shut it off. He kept answering questions with vague excuses and uncertain recollection. One of the questions asking of he was aware that customer funds had been moved was not answered with a simple yes or no like most (or maybe some) would respond.

Former N.J. Governor Jon Corzine Begins Testimony Regarding $1.2 Billion Lost by MF Global; Faces Possible Criminal Charges | Fox News Insider

Former New Jersey Senator and Governor Jon Corzine has begun testifying today about missing money lost under his management as chief executive officer of failed brokerage, MF Global.
MF Global’s bankcruptcy is the eighth largest in U.S. history, after $1.2 billion in farmers’, ranchers’ and other clients’ money was lost and more than 1,000 employees were left unemployed.
Corzine says he has “no idea” where the money went, refuting claims that he over-leveraged the firm with investments in European sovereign debt by claiming he in fact reduced MF Global’s leverage under his tenure. It is still unclear why MF Global mixed customer funds with the firm’s own accounts.
Despite his inability to account for substantial monetary losses, Corzine has expressed his deep regret in a statement.

“I was stunned when I was told on October 30, 2011, that MF Global could not account for many hundreds of millions of dollars of client money. I remain deeply concerned about the impact of MF Global’s customers and others. As the chief executive officer of MF Global, I ultimately had responsibility for the firm; I did not, however, generally involve myself in the firm’s mechanics of the [firm's] movement of cash and collateral. I had little expertise or experience in those operational aspects of the business.”

Corzine faces several lawsuits, and perhaps even criminal charges.

Go figure

This is Obamas boy, nominated him and everything. but nobody talks about that.

Originally Posted by ebn2002

This is Obamas boy, nominated him and everything. but nobody talks about that.

Nominated him for what, governor of NJ in 2006? He never nominated him for Treasury secretary. I guess it could be said that he almost did, but I almost got hit by a car, does that mean the driver killed me?

this all stems from decades of deregulation in the US banking culture on wallstreet, etc and why the world is in global recession right now. none of the fuckers that cause all these problems ever suffer the fiscal repercussions of their actions or in-actions in some cases. stupid american's put these manipulators of "capital" up on these high pedestals all these decades as if they are gods, and they eat that shit up and buy into it. so much of the success on wallstreet in terms of having good & bad years is simply pure luck. 2/3's of the accounts of money market managers, etc. on wallstreet lose money or do not meet projections on any given year.

from a personal perspective i'd have to say at least 50% of my buddies that work in wallstreet were c students in math in high school and some don't even have degrees and are VP's at there respective company's. academically a lot of them are not what people think they are, far-far less skilled than most could ever imagine.

Originally Posted by Dale Mabry

Nominated him for what, governor of NJ in 2006? He never nominated him for Treasury secretary. I guess it could be said that he almost did, but I almost got hit by a car, does that mean the driver killed me?

I found a Dem on IronMag!

So he was about to nominate him, found out about what was going on at MF Global, and didn't. OK, so why didn't they do something about it then and save all these investors? Because you now know that's what they found and why he didn't nominate him and just left all those people at MF out to dry.

He is still dropping mines from the time he was Governor:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/ny...ines&emc=tha29

MF Global is (another) ugly story.

Using clients funds (money) to cover themselves? The did this, correct?

Somebody should be going to jail over this.

But how often does that happen?

MF Global is (another) ugly story.

Using clients funds (money) to cover themselves? The did this, correct?

Somebody should be going to jail over this.

But how often does that happen?

I hope all 1066 of those overpaid dinks have to go get a job at McDonald's or Home Depot or something like that. Ride the bus. Buy groceries from Wal-mart. All that good stuff.

Originally Posted by Big Smoothy

MF Global is (another) ugly story.

Using clients funds (money) to cover themselves? The did this, correct?

Somebody should be going to jail over this.

But how often does that happen?

not very often but that has been US history for the past 100 years. deregulation of the financial markets by default decriminalizes fraud and other methods of rent seeking.

BOA, Wells Fargo, HSBC and Wachovia got busted laundering almost 400B of drug money from Mexico during the mid 2000's and nobody get's prosecuted. the DC-9's they bought from McDonald Douglass to traffic cocaine, drug money. the SUV's they order from the US, drug money....US corps don't care where it comes from

check out this paper by Akerlof & Romer from 2009 when you get the chance Smoothy

Looting: The Economic Underworld of Bankruptcy for Profit
www.signallake.com/innovation/Looting1993.pdf

the 1930s’ Pecora Commission, investigated the fraud that led to the Great Depression...the same thing will occur in later years from today regarding the causes of the Great Recession.

Economist James K. Galbraith wrote in the introduction to his father in his book the definitive study of the Great Depression, The Great Crash, 1929:

"
The main relevance of The Great Crash, 1929 to the great crisis of 2008 is surely here. In both cases, the government knew what it should do. Both times, it declined to do it. In the summer of 1929 a few stern words from on high, a rise in the discount rate, a tough investigation into the pyramid schemes of the day, and the house of cards on Wall Street would have tumbled before its fall destroyed the whole economy. In 2004, the FBI warned publicly of “an epidemic of mortgage fraud.” But the government did nothing, and less than nothing, delivering instead low interest rates, deregulation and clear signals that laws would not be enforced. The signals were not subtle: on one occasion the director of the Office of Thrift Supervision came to a conference with copies of the Federal Register and a chainsaw. There followed every manner of scheme to fleece the unsuspecting ….

This was fraud, perpetrated in the first instance by the government on the population, and by the rich on the poor.

***

The government that permits this to happen is complicit in a vast crime."

Originally Posted by lnvanry

Moron preached how leverage is what tipped our economic crisis of a cliff...then takes his new company into a leveraged state than Lehman Bro.

what an idiot...I'm sure he got a sick severance package too

That's the name of the game. These guys bounce from place to place getting killer pay and severance packages because they know somebody or somebody owes them a favor. Clearly it's not because of their ability to run a company unless the corporate mission is to lose a shit ton of money and leave the employees out in the cold while the top guys collect more cash than the GDP of some countries.

Originally Posted by Big Smoothy

MF Global is (another) ugly story.

Using clients funds (money) to cover themselves? The did this, correct?

Somebody should be going to jail over this.

But how often does that happen?

White collar crime. At worst a few years in a federal country club of a jail. Mostly they just get a little bad of PR in the press and a month later they are at it again.

Originally Posted by ebn2002

I found a Dem on IronMag!

So he was about to nominate him, found out about what was going on at MF Global, and didn't. OK, so why didn't they do something about it then and save all these investors? Because you now know that's what they found and why he didn't nominate him and just left all those people at MF out to dry.

I'm not a democrat retard, I'm a libertarian. And use a little common sense, I they knew anything or could have brought him up on charges back in 2008/2009 they would have.

Bloomberg Suffers, Too, in Collapse of MF Global - NYTimes.com

After a Delay, MF Global's Missing Money Is Traced - NYTimes.com

After a Delay, MF Global’s Missing Money Is Traced

By BEN PROTESS and AZAM AHMED
Louis Freeh, a former F.B.I. director, and James Giddens, below, a partner at Hughes, Hubbard & Reed, are MF Global trustees.
Investigators have determined what happened to nearly all of the customer money that disappeared from MF Global around the time of its bankruptcy last Oct. 31, but have not publicly disclosed their progress, fearing that doing so might cripple efforts to recover the cash and pursue potential wrongdoing, people briefed on the investigation said.

While authorities have traced hundreds of millions of dollars to banks, MF Global’s trading partners and even the firm’s securities customers, investigators remain uncertain about whether they can retrieve the money.

Some recipients were entitled to payouts from MF Global, which could make clawing back the money difficult. For instance, securities customers withdrawing their money as MF Global began to collapse were paid from accounts that belonged to futures clients, according to other people briefed on the matter.


But the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the regulator leading the investigation, will examine whether anyone accepted customer cash without verifying the source of the money, one of the people briefed on the matter said.
This person and others who discussed the case did so on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is not public.

The findings shift the pressing question surrounding the collapse of MF Global from what happened to the money to how to recover it and who is at fault.
Answers will not come easy. A significant impediment has been clashes among the parties trying to resolve the MF Global mess: three federal agencies and two bankruptcy trustees.

At the center of the squabbling are e-mails sent by top executives at MF Global — communications that have been withheld from federal authorities, according to the people briefed on the matter. Investigators suspect the e-mails, sent just before the firm collapsed, contain clues about who transferred the money from protected customer accounts.

The clashes stem from the conflicting interests of those involved. James W. Giddens, the trustee overseeing the liquidation of the brokerage unit, is charged with returning money to wronged customers. That mission is at odds with the interests of Louis J. Freeh, the trustee overseeing the liquidation of the firm, who is seeking to recover money for MF Global’s creditors.

Mr. Freeh’s lawyers have declined to share a number of internal MF Global e-mails with Mr. Giddens and federal investigators, including the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which has asked for access to the documents, the people briefed on the investigation said. In turn, Mr. Giddens has been slow to hand over account statements that Mr. Freeh, a former F.B.I. director, needs to conduct his court-ordered investigation and determine what creditors are owed.

Mr. Freeh’s reluctance stems in part from the fact that the lawyers working on his behalf have not made their way through the mountain of e-mail, people involved in the case said. The lawyers are loath to waive attorney-client privilege, which shields the documents from outsiders, until they have completed their review.
Despite the obstacles, federal authorities say they are making progress.

As of late December, investigators had obtained more than 10,000 e-mails, interviewed more than 50 witnesses and subpoenaed about 20 people, another person briefed on the case said.

Jill E. Sommers, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission official charged with overseeing the MF Global case, said in a December statement that transfers from customer accounts “have been identified, and subsequent transfers of those funds are currently being traced.”

Now, authorities have traced more than 90 percent of those subsequent transfers, people briefed on the investigation said.

“We understand the frustration of customers, but the C.F.T.C. must take the necessary time — however long it takes — to get to the bottom of what happened at MF Global and take appropriate actions,” the agency said in a statement on Tuesday.

Customers, including farmers, hedge funds and other small traders, have been very frustrated with the pace of the investigation and the dearth of updates about their missing money.

While a number of the 38,000 customers have been paid nearly three quarters of their money, others have yet to receive a dime. Paul Jordan, a retired business executive, has not received any of the money from accounts trading on foreign exchanges, an amount that totals about $500,000, he said. His patience is wearing thin.

“The thing that really irritates me is that I’m not a super wealthy individual,” said Mr. Jordan, 65. “I’m thankful that some funds have been paid out, because bankruptcies can last for years, but I would have hoped by this time that it would be pretty clear where the funds are and exactly what happened to them.”

In contrast, when customer cash was missing from Sentinel Management Group, a Chicago brokerage firm that collapsed in 2007, the trustee overseeing that case found the money within a week. Within a month, the trustee, Fred Grede, announced that the money had turned up at the Bank of New York Mellon.

While MF Global presents a greater challenge than Sentinel, given its size and the amount of money missing, the precedent underscores the importance of keeping customers informed.

“To me, transparency is the key,” Mr. Grede said.
Even regulators are growing anxious about how long the investigation is taking.
“Futures customers — including farmers, ranchers, and manufacturers — have been suspended in excruciating limbo, wondering when they will receive their funds,” Scott O’Malia, a member of the futures commission, said in a speech on Tuesday. “This situation is intolerable and unacceptable.”

While the commissioners are briefed weekly on enforcement cases, over the last three months they have only been briefed twice as a group on the status of the MF Global investigation, according to people close to the commission. Instead, commissioners are seeking their own separate briefings on the case.
Some argue that the lack of cohesion deprives investigators of the collective insight of staff members when the agency faces perhaps its greatest test.

In November, investigators said they began to worry that money may have vanished into a web of counterparties and creditors who are entitled to MF Global’s money. The concern implies that the money may not be missing, but is gone for good.
But at least some of the customer money MF Global misused was transferred to JP Morgan Chase, MF Global’s main bank. Investigators also suspect that MF Global made improper transfers of customer money to the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, a clearinghouse that did business with MF Global. The clearinghouse may have passed on the money to MF Global’s trading partners, who would have rightful claims to money from MF Global. A major part of futures customer money also went to securities customers who were closing accounts in October.

Ultimately the task of recovering money falls to Mr. Giddens, who collected the final claims on Tuesday, the last day customers were permitted to file forms outlining what they are still owed.

He has not said how far his investigation has come. He has deployed a team of 60 lawyers and hired 100 consultants from Deloitte and 60 forensic accountants from Ernst & Young to help sift through some $327 billion in wire transfers in and out of MF Global the month before its collapse.

As Mr. Giddens’s team hunts for the money, it is quietly coaxing some recipients to return it.
“We are pressing our investigative team to now come up with actionable intelligence that the trustee can use to determine the location of remaining customers assets, and most importantly, if we can get those assets back under the trustee’s control for return to customers,” Kent Jarrell, a spokesman for Mr. Giddens, said in a statement. “The trustee will use all appropriate and legal means to get those assets.”

Originally Posted by Gregzs

He is still dropping mines from the time he was Governor:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/ny...ines&emc=tha29

He's a major fuck up in every way possible.

Were these 1066 MF global employees the same clowns raining down Mcdonald's applications onto the occupy wallstreet folks? I sure hope so, Gawd damn I love me some poetic justice.

it's nothing more than the semi-legalized looting that the american banking/finance sector has been perpetrating on the american people for almost 100 years now..

Originally Posted by withoutrulers

Were these 1066 MF global employees the same clowns raining down Mcdonald's applications onto the occupy wallstreet folks? I sure hope so, Gawd damn I love me some poetic justice.

Ha! They might want those back now.

Outrage! MF Global Execs May Get Bonuses | Compliancex

^ The US has devolved as a society. Significantly devolved.

And also, the mutual contract of putting your money/investments somewhere for old age and counting on it, is gone.

If you're money is stolen and squandered, that's tough luck.

Originally Posted by Big Smoothy

^ The US has devolved as a society. Significantly devolved.

And also, the mutual contract of putting your money/investments somewhere for old age and counting on it, is gone.

If you're money is stolen and squandered, that's tough luck.

remember Bush wanted to make all financial crimes fall under civil penal code

not sure if you heard but ALEC is trying to get retail theft turned into a felony for repeat offenders regardless of the value of the merchandise.

Originally Posted by LAM

remember Bush wanted to make all financial crimes fall under civil penal code

GWB? Not G.H.W.B?

By classifying financial crimes under civil penal code they do not jail time correct?

That does not surprise me. It's a Banker and Oil nation.

not sure if you heard but ALEC is trying to get retail theft turned into a felony for repeat offenders regardless of the value of the merchandise.

ALEC?....sounds like an association.

Originally Posted by Big Smoothy

ALEC?....sounds like an association.

ALEC writes most of the far right legislation at the state level. their legislation enables the US for profit prison system to grow and is why the US houses 25% of the worlds prisoners of which most are non-violent. they have been the driving force behind the rise of the prison industrial complex and for profit prisons. the wrote all the 3 strikes laws, mandatory minimum sentences, unequal sentencing for crack, the right to work for less wage laws, education privatization, etc. most of their legislation is in direct contrast to the best practices reported in most OECD reports. not much good comes out of that organization, was founded by the same person that helped start Heritage. they receive major funding through Koch, Walmart, AT&T, Johnson & Johnson and many others. they do the dirty work for the 1% in terms of legislation.

ALEC – American Legislative Exchange Council | Limited Government · Free Markets · Federalism

Originally Posted by LAM

ALEC writes most of the far right legislation at the state level. their legislation enables the US for profit prison system to grow and is why the US houses 25% of the worlds prisoners of which most are non-violent. they have been the driving force behind the rise of the prison industrial complex and for profit prisons. the wrote all the 3 strikes laws, mandatory minimum sentences, unequal sentencing for crack, the right to work for less wage laws, education privatization, etc. most of their legislation is in direct contrast to the best practices reported in most OECD reports. not much good comes out of that organization, was founded by the same person that helped start Heritage. they receive major funding through Koch, Walmart, AT&T, Johnson & Johnson and many others. they do the dirty work for the 1% in terms of legislation.

ALEC – American Legislative Exchange Council | Limited Government · Free Markets · Federalism

LAM,

Thank you for this info! I will pass it around and also do some research. These organization have so much influence - power.

But I never knew about them.

And look who funds them.....

Originally Posted by LAM

from a personal perspective i'd have to say at least 50% of my buddies that work in wallstreet were c students in math in high school and some don't even have degrees and are VP's at there respective company's. academically a lot of them are not what people think they are, far-far less skilled than most could ever imagine.

This doesn't surprise me. I think all you need is a lack of conscience. People don't get to the top for their outstanding morals it seems.