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Posted on 11/18/2011 12:44:12 PM PST by Hojczyk
Don’t remind me. I’m already doing a slow boil over everything else, and that announcement of hers was the limit of my patience with her. She needs to be replaced by someone who knows what “conservative” means. She obviously doesn’t.
Dam, I like the way you think. Brilliant.
And while L/E has Corzio under a microscope, they need to look into the following:
(1) $17.5 Billion "stimulus" Obama sent to NJ when then-gov Corzio was runnning for reelection. Investigative reporters could not find a trace of it once it landed.
NOTE WELL Obama and Biden were intricately involved in Corzio's losing race----both campaigning in person several times. Obama's ads for Corzine ran relentlessly on pricey NY media. The Obama WH team was put at Corzio's disposal---and monitored all his election activities. Secret latino rallies were held and Corzio had a "Peruvian PAC" endorsing him (all of this reported by the NY Times). Corzio bragged he had 20,000 paid union workers getting out the vote.....and still he lost.
(2) Gov/Sen Jon "return on investment" Corzio spent some $125 million of his own money buying two public offices. He registered three corporations in super-secret Delaware BEFORE taking office (L/E might find missing Mf Globsl millions there).
(3) One NJ agency had $8 Billion go missing---couple state agencies went bankrupt----under Corzio's watch. The state pension fund lost some 25%.
(4) Gov Corzio named his G/S buddy (an MF Global Principal) Brad Abelow as Treasury Secy---controlling ALL of NJ's tax assets.
(5) Gov Corzio and Secy Abelow formed an investment group; later the "financial geniuses" said they did NOT know it was illegal to do so.
And so on and so forth, ad infinitum, ad nauseaum.
Corzine, in his zeal to transform MF from a brokerage into a mini-Goldman investment, money-management and trading firm attempted to use a loophole in the CFTC laws that allows, under certain circumstances, "use customers accounts to invest in sovereign debt" and was lobbying his friends, including current chairman of CFTC, with whom he worked at Goldman Sachs, to not close it ...
From MF Global Clients Get Relief But, No Resolution - CNBC, by Rick Santelli, Lori Spechler, 2011 November 17
Seems impossible but, that is exactly what happened to some clients of MF Global. A document for the office of the Trustee for the liquidation of MF Global Inc. states that it is not clear "...how long it will be before the Trustee is able to return additional assets to customers." The CFTC has ordered an audit of all Futures Commission Merchants (FCMs). MF Global was audited by the CFTC, just ahead of its bankruptcy. And as clients of MF Global are now painfully aware, CFTC Regulation 1.25 allows segregated funds to be used for other purposes including "…general obligations of a sovereign nation". The CFTC is expected to address this rule at its meeting on December 5. Audits and rule-making are two ways to start restoring confidence to the futures markets. Getting money back to investors who were simply holding cash on account is another. < snip > ..... Let's say that you deposited $100,000 in cash, in a segregated account at a registered Futures Commission Merchant (FCM) in America, in 2011. That means, money in your name, in your account and according to an opening account document from MF Global dated 2008, "Under no circumstances will the trading activity in this account be for the beneficial ownership or interest of other parties." And then you couldn't get that money back.
From Losing house money - NYP, by Mark DeCambre and Kaja Whitehouse, 2011 December 17
However, he added that customers harbor what he described as "misconceptions" about the process of returning funds and pointed to the commingling of millions of customers' and company money as part of the problem. During the hearing, a sympathetic Judge Glenn briefly recounted one MF customer's dilemma in Tennessee who told the court that his life "savings is tied up in what they thought were segregated accounts." Meanwhile, in a sign that federal probes into the roughly $650 million that is missing are intensifying, US Attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald and Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara have begun issuing their first round of subpoenas to MF Global, The Wall Street Journal said. < snip > ..... James Kobak of Hughes Hubbard & Reed, representing the MF Global court-appointed trustee, acknowledged customer frustration.
From MF Global Moved Clients' Funds to BNY Mellon - WSJ (sub), by Aaron Lucchetti, 2011 November 19
There is no sign the move has anything to do with the estimated $600 million in missing customer money at MF Global that regulators have been hunting for since the Chapter 11 filing on Oct. 31. ..... < snip > MF Global Holdings Ltd. moved hundreds of millions of dollars in customer money from its U.S. brokerage unit to Bank of New York Mellon Corp. in August, more than two months before the securities firm filed for bankruptcy protection, according to people familiar with the matter.
The money was moved just when the regulators demanded that MF increased the collateral for its trading accounts.
It's early in the investigations, but there are already signs that Corzine was tiptoeing on the edges of several laws and regulations. Enron bigs went down for less than this, and that was before Sarbox... Wouldn't it be wonderful if Corzine becomes the tipping point in scrapping that horrendous, economically punitive bill that drove so much of the business ventures and capital from the U.S.?
Who could have thunk it?
.......just when the regulators demanded that MF increase the collateral for its trading accounts. MF Global Holdings Ltd. moved $100's of millions in customer money from its brokerage unit to Bank of New York Mellon Corp. in August, more than two months before the securities firm filed for bankruptcy.......no sign the move has anything to do with the estimated $600 million in missing customer money investigators have bveen looking for since the Chapter 11 filing on Oct. 31. ..... .
The missing money could be in several places:
(1) Corzine has three corporations registered in super-secret Delaware.
(2) Corzine has a "foundation"---targeted by the IRS as perfect money laudering/tax evasion machines.One money laundering trick is a foundation writing checks to another fooundation.
(3) Gov Corzine inexplicably went to Israel when he had no reason to be there---but Israel is one of the world's top money laundering havens. One can take a suitcase of money to a bank and no one asks where it came from.
(4) Other principals in MF Global are Brad Abelow (gov C's Treasury Secy appointee) and Chris Flowers who oversaw Corsine's "blind assets" when Corzio was in office.
(5) Missing money could be in Corzio's Japanese bank. Flowers led the deal to invest Sen Corz's "blind assets" in a Japanese bank; Sen Corz led the US Senate effort to give the bank a tax break---said "he had no idea" the bill benefitted him.
"Margin" is like a high speed elevator ride...it can get you to the "top" in a hurry, but you can crash and burn very fast on the downslope..So, to control ONE BILLION in soverign debt, you needed to put up about $30 million.., but if the value of that Billion declined by 3%, your entire margin balance was wiped out, and you have to post another $30 million, OR YOUR POSITION IS SOLD OUT FROM UNDER YOU.
Corzine had bet the ranch...he was convinced that the soverign European debt was a good bet..he put ALL the firm's capital into those positions, and when they were wiped out..the margin balances lost, Corzine couldn't admit that he had blown it..lost all..so he in effect "doubled down"..to keep the positions, keep from being closed out.. ( believeing that they would turn around to be in the money)..he had to post more margin capital..he couldn't borrow it..so he "borrowed it" from the firms' customer accounts.
There's a clear record of what went where, to whom, and when..through the clearing houses. And of course, those banks and firms that got the money are saying..."ain't my problem.." they're not gonna make it whole..
There is definitely an interest from other firms in acquiring pieces of brokerage business and some of the investment business, but they may not get anything without making sure that segregated account-holders will get their money - they have become first debtors in line.
From Vultures pick MF carcass - NYP, by Mark DeCambre, 2011 November 19
Days after the firm descended into a death spiral that led to the eighth-largest bankruptcy in US history, the vultures are picking off pieces, including savvy financier David Tepper. His hedge fund, Appaloosa Management, gobbled up an 8.6 percent stake in the firm's shares on Nov. 2, after MF had moved from the Big Board to the over-the-counter market. Tepper also bought pieces of MF debt, sources said. Hedge fund Elliott Management and Bank of America also have stakes in the collapsed broker-dealer and are betting there will be leftover value even after MF's creditors and legions of customers get their money back. ..... < snip > ..... According to its bankruptcy filing, MF has assets of $41 billion against debts of $39.7 billion. ..... < snip > Some Wall Street investment titans still think there's meat on the bones of the carcass of bankrupt MF Global.
It's a question of how much of these "assets" valuations are real, but if they are, buyer(s) can provide collateral to see the trades through to maturity, when they will be definitely profitable. Interactive Brokers almost bought MFGH but then the news of commingling and "missing" $650M in customers accounts broke and scuttled the deal.
Also, this has not been talked about much, but generally, the brokerages have an outside insurance company (such as Society of Lloyd's / Lloyds of London or Aon) that guarantee customers accounts for at least $1M and in many case for over $10M just in cases like this - against malfeasance, not against trading losses. If any segregated cash account losses are incurred (which seems unlikely at this point - there is not much left to distribute and enough assets to cover the remainder) it would take some time for insurance company to cover it, but eventually, they should be covered.
Accounts with open positions are the tricky ones, and that's why judge and trustee are doing it piecemeal, trying to disperse as much as they can now, to alleviate the pain, with the rest of the money dispersed as it becomes available - from closing the trades, to selling parts of the company.
It's a mess that will go on for a while. Along with Solyndra bust and other DOE "Democrat-friendly" loans / "investments" to marginal "green energy" companies (the only "green" there is the color of money that is being sucked from taxpayers), this should provide a drip-drip-drip of corruption and crony socialism by Obama and his administration, just in time for election season.
That is, if Republicans can make hay out of it, they didn't gain any traction or made visible attempts to expose Madoff's top Democratic political connections, unlike Dems connecting "corrupt disgraced lobbyist Abramoff" to GOP.
I think, the word leverage is a key here, and where Corzine may have a lot of trouble. CTFC rule says "sovereign debt" which could be considered a "safe" instrument, but there is nothing about derivatives on that instrument and especially nothing about leveraging the said instrument, which changes the nature of the instrument itself and its degree of "safety" (which has been converted into "risk" by leverage).
And who will report it? The media is not. Not enough Republicans involved in this scandal. The media is looking for another white woman who will say Cain called her baby. How horrible!
Ping me when a corrupt scumbag Democrat - - Jon Corzine, for example - - spends a single day in real jail.
Where’s Corzine? Has he been arrested? Are they making up the bunk next to Kenneth Lay?
That bunk would be six-feet below the daisies (ref: July 5 '06).
(but maybe that is what you intended ;) )
“The demonrats are looting this country, both the taxpayer and businesses. The money is being offshored.”
Yup.
“fix”
Biden?
“Joey B” knows da woid fix. He’s a fixer. YaknowwhadImean?
Actual MF Global Ad: "Everyone has opinions. We have convictions." From iconic to ironic in less than two years of Corzine?
Excellent site and a great woman. Unfortunately she has just announced (on the 17th) that she has closed her brokerage biz.
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