Tiny rule change sinks MF Global

Laurie: R. Ferber has quite a resume. She is currently the general counsel of MF Global Holdings, the New York-based futures and commodities brokerage that filed for bankruptcy on October 31, listing some $40 billion in liabilities.

Before joining MF Global in 2009, a year or so before Jon Corzine became its chairman and chief executive officer, Ferber was general counsel and chief regulatory officer at the International Derivatives Clearing Group LLC, which clears interest-rate swaps. Before that, she spent more than 20 years at Goldman Sachs Group, where first she was general counsel for J. Aron & Company, a commodities business that Goldman Sachs bought in 1981, and then was the co-general counsel of Goldman's principal business, known as FICC — for Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities — when J. Aron was merged into the rest of Goldman's fixed-income division.

But at the moment, her greatest significance may be as a long-time advocate for revisions to a little-known and vastly under-appreciated Commodities Futures Trading Commission rule called Regulation 1.25.

Before 2000, the rule permitted futures brokers to take money from their customers' accounts and invest it in a number of approved securities limited to "obligations of the United States and obligations fully guaranteed as to principal and interest by the United States [US government securities], and general obligations of any State or of any political subdivision thereof [municipal securities]." That is, relatively safe securities with high liquidity.

The banks, however, pushed the CFTC to expand the investment options that would allow firms to practice "internal repo". In this scheme, money is taken from customer accounts and invested short-term in a variety of securities, with the futures brokers reaping the not-insignificant financial rewards from their customers' money.

And, lo and behold, such efforts were successful. In December 2000, the CFTC agreed to amend Regulation 1.25 "to permit investments in general obligations issued by any enterprise sponsored by the United States, bank certificates of deposit, commercial paper, corporate notes, general obligations of a sovereign nation, and interests in money market mutual funds" — in other words, riskier investments that could make more money for Wall Street.

Then, in February 2004 and May 2005, Regulation 1.25 was further amended and refined to the liking of Ferber and the banks. In the end, the door was opened for firms such as MF Global to do internal repos of customers' deposits and invest the funds in the "general obligations of a sovereign nation".

This practice, of course, may well be the centrepiece of the MF Global disaster. We now know that Corzine — who was CEO of Goldman Sachs from 1994 to 1999 — bet $6.3 billion on the distressed long-term bonds of countries such as Italy and Spain, although it's unclear if clients' funds were used. Bart Chilton, a CFTC commissioner, told Bloomberg News on November 10 the loss to customers' accounts may have resulted from a "massive hide-and-seek ploy". While the CFTC's and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's probes into the missing money continue, it isn't too soon to pass judgment on how the too-close relationship between Wall Street and Washington can lead to seemingly innocuous changes in the obscure rules governing the securities industry, which, in turn, can result in financial disaster.

This danger is especially relevant now as hundreds of new regulations are being written that will govern the way Wall Street operates in post-crisis, post-Dodd-Frank world. Needless to say, Wall Street's lobbyists are looking to place a heavy hand on the regulators' keyboards and make sure the new rules are rewritten the way they want them to be.

Now, MF Global is gone, along with thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in creditor money — to say nothing of the still missing $593 million.

"I believe we have to tighten how investor funds can be used," Gary Gensler, the CFTC chairman and another former Goldman Sachs executive, said on November 7. "They're segregated and must be segregated at every minute of every day. And then if they are invested, they should be invested with good collateral with outside parties." That's the right idea; I hope this time the commission means it.

So-called "regulators" (CFTC in this case) complicit in taxpayer/investor gang rape. Massive evidence of ubiquitous corruption in the political/financial systems around the world... The Washington/Wall Street cabal. The same story is playing out in formerly free countries all over the world. As the morality of people erodes, so erodes the institutions of power and money, until they break down at accelerating rates after tipping points are passed.

Your post doesn’t jibe with this outtake...

...However, based upon reliable sources, staff inside the SEC had proposed a rule that brokers could no longer post client’s assets in REPO. Corzine, I believe, hopped on a plane and flew down to DC and met with Mary Shapiro, the head of the SEC to prevent that rule from being implemented. According to sources, Shapiro agreed and stopped the change in rules and that allowed MF Global to continue to use client funds for their own trading.

Mary Shapiro has denied that the collapse of MF Global was any failure to do with regulators. The head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Gary Gensler, recused himself because of concerns of conflict of interest since he and Corzine held prominent positions at Goldman Sachs at the same time during the late 1990s. Does anyone really think he will let his underlings prosecute Corzine? This incestuous relationship between regulators and the big New York firms is destroying the integrity of the financial system and making the United States a laughing stock. How can anyone with a potential conflict of interest be put in charge of a regulator? Based upon good sources, Corzine met with Shapiro PRIOR to the collapse to prevent a rule that would have in fact prevented the demise of MF Global. Who is regulating the Regulators? Does the entire financial system have to turn to dust?... http://www.pbs.org/nbr/site/onair/transcripts/sec_chairman_mary_Schapiro_on_mf_global_111107/...

From my earlier posting here...http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2808390/posts

I for one am sooooo sick of these elites screwing up their companies or programs with bad ideas which they expect us taxpayers to pay for. Then they turn around the next day and tell us “boo hoo, we’re out of money....now we have to raise taxes on you chumps.”

Well guess what, guys....I’m tapped out. Now ESAD.

Mrs. Prince of Space

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