Posted on 02/14/2012 12:05:27 AM PST by Razzz42
The trustee overseeing MF Global's liquidation has come out and confirmed that the amount of customers’ funds of the failed brokerage are now expected to be at least $1.6 billion. This gap has now risen from the previous estimate of $1.2 billion. This is the biggest financial crime perhaps in history far worse than Madoff. This is the outright theft of client funds that nobody is being called to account for no less the recipients of such funds being made to return them. The collapse of MF Global, which was headed by former Goldman Sachs CEO, Senator, and New Jersey Governor, Jon Corzine, was the eighth-largest corporate bankruptcy in U.S. history.
About $1.2 billion previously reported as missing has been traced to customer accounts and banks. The US Regulators are investigating only whether MF Global tapped into client money from clients' accounts as its financial condition worsened. They are ignoring the fact that it was trading with client money prior to the last few days. Brokerage Houses are required to keep customer money separate from the firm's money but that is simply not being enforced in the instant case. Judge Glenn has a history of ignoring the law. In the case of Princeton Economics, a public mutual fund was under management at Deutsche Bank. He seized the entire public mutual fund without tracing any alleged assets, and made all the customers in the public fund PROVE the money they put into the fund was theirs. As any lawyer what is the law. If a receiver is going to seize assets, he has to prove he has a right to do so. Martin Glenn reversed the law, proved NOTHING of the sort, was prepared to confiscate depositor’s money to help New York Bank as he is again doing right now, and made people prove it was their own money. Every investor in the public fund had to sign an affidavit swearing it was their money. And they made this guy a judge?
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About $700 million in customer money is located in Britain. Here the US Trustee, James Giddens, is in a legal dispute over that money with the British administrator overseeing the liquidation of MF Global's division in London. A large portion of customer accounts that have been affected are from California, Florida, Illinois, New York and Texas. These amount to about 40% of all claims and represent funds that belonged to farmers, ranchers and other business owners who utilized MF Global for hedging their production. Under no circumstances should the clients be losing ANYTHING. The banks that accepted the funds AS A MATTER OF LAW should have been compelled to return them. When the courts in New York only protect the NY Banks, you have to be nuts to have any money there.
Can you or someone here explain to me why Corzine is not facing criminal charges?
I mean I recognize he’s a Dem, but damn what a crook!
We have seen the contracts of these commodity hedge funds. A participant literally gives them permission to do exactly what MF Global did.
The customer gives them permission to use their "safe" deposits to cover losses.
What happens when you have a claim and your insurance company goes broke? But you have been contributing to an annuity.
The reason there were no answers to congress is because they all know the answer (it is legal) but don't want to plaster it all over the world.
yitbos
Sounds like Ann Barnhardt was spot on. Per her, this goes well beyond MF Global into the Merc’s actions and into the FedGov’s beyond that.
http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/2011/12/02/ann-barnhardt/interview-transcript
Isn’t Corzine being embarrassed by Congressional hearing questions good enough for you?
Now, 1.6 billion bucks, soon it will be serious money lost.
Corzine lobbied and received exemptions from rules that were supposed to prevent this sort of thing.
There is an insurance pool but that won’t kick in either as the small print investors agreed to says their funds can be used as overnight collateral by the hedge fund. Use to be you would receive a small amount of interest on your funds when they were loaned out.
If you aren’t a to big to fail bank, you won’t get bailed out. Congress has less than a 10% approval rating but that doesn’t seem to bother them.
Guys like Armstrong and Sinclair try to warn you about banks and protecting yourself during absence of the rule-of-law. Even any stocks you think you own are in your broker’s house name unless you electronically register them in your name or take possession via certificates.
Today making money by investing is not even as important as figuring out how to keep what you have. 0% interest and price inflation certainly doesn’t help matters. Even if you have no debt, the gas price at the pump will kick your ass.
Yep. It's difficult to stay ahead of inflation without involving a second and third party.
yitbos
BACKSTORY
(a) Then-US Sen Jon Corzine (D- NJ), used elected office to pass a special tax exemption for a Japanese bank he owned----G/S crony Christopher Flowers---adminstrator of Corzine's "blind trust"--- used Corzine's assets to takeover the Japanese bank. Corzine said he "did not know" the legislation he sponsored benefited him. (God only knows the insider deals he made with other Senators to get the bill passed.
(b) FAST FORWARD---Now Sen is Gov Corzine. He and G/S crony Brad Abelow---who Corzine appointed as NJ Treasury Secy---formed a private investmnent firm. The two financisl geniuses said they "did not know" that move was illegal for govt officials.
(c) Several NJ agencies went bankrupt with huge pots of money under Gov Corzine. $8B went missing from the Schools Bldg fund.
(d) Corzine, Abelow and Flowers---G/S cronies---all ended up at MF Global and presided over the disappearance of $1.2 billion.
All of this is no coincidence. Self- serving Corzine has always been about using public office to personally profit.
1. When Congress asked Bradley Abelow about "previously working with Corzine," close- mouthed Abelow reluctantly mentioned being Gov Corzine's COS.
2. Abelow MADE NO MENTION of Corzine appointing him to head NJ's Dept of the Treasury--- where the two con artists controlled ALL of NJ's tax assets.
3. Abelow and Corzine SHOULD have been pressed about their formation of an investment company while they were principals of NJ govt and controlled its assets. The two "financial geniuses" said they did not known this was illegal.
4. Abelow also failed to disclose his current position---as chairman of the EPA's Financial Advisory Board. NOTE: The current EPA head also served in Gov Corzine's adminstration.
5. Abelow 's financial activities at EPA need top to bottom investigations. We need to know why Abelow is witholding crucial info. What does he have to hide?
========================================
POINTS TO PONDER
<><>Bradley Abelow, an MBA from Yale School of Management, served as chief of Staff to the Governor of New Jersey in the Cabinet of Gov. Jon Corzine.
<><>Corzine first appointed Abelow Sevy f the Treasury.
<><>Abelow and Crozine were top executives at Goldman Sachs.
<><>Abelow was MF Global Chief Operating Officer; Corzine was MF's CEO.
<><> G/S alumni Chris Flowers controlled Corzine's "blind trust" while Corzine was in public office Flowers is also an MF principal.
ANALYSIS It defies imagination and common sense that these "financial geniuses" told Congress they can't figure out where the missing $1.2 billion is. Monies transferred in and out of MF Global continually.....all done by wire transfer------called EFT's. There's a clear record of when, where, and how much for EACH wire transfer......like your cell phone bill. Each call is listed, the number dialed, the time of the call, and the duration.
Corzine and Abelow are making a huge mistake by underestimating the anger of those they left holding the bag----they socked NJ with massive debt, bankrupt state agencies, and a state pension fund 25% lighter, Billions of NJ tax assets are unaccounted for.
<><> Corzine is a well-rounded operator. As Governor, he left the state of NJ $8 billion in debt. $8 billion went missing from one state agency....other agencies like UI and the Transporation Trust Fund went bankrupt with no explanation why. The $82 Billion state pension fund lost about 25%.
<><> OBAMA-CORZINE CONNECTION Right before Corzio’s reelection, Obama sent $17.5 Billion stimulus to NJ-—which promptly vanished. VP Biden is on record as having asked Corzine for financial advice----Biden has a son and a brother involved with the Stanford offshore fraud (Stanford is in jail.)
<><> MF Global principal Brad Abelow was Corzine’s appointee as NJ Treasury Secy——controlling ALL NJ assets. Gov and Secy started an investment business——but the two “financial geniuses” said did not know this was illegal.
<><> MF Global principal Chris Flowers handled Sen/Gov Corzine’s “blind assets” ......Flowers led the taskeover of a Japanerse bank for Corzine——Sen Corzine passed a bill giving the bank a US tax break......said he did not know the bill benefitted him.
<><><><> All three of the above-named MF Global principals are G/S cronies.
<><> Corzine registered three corporations in super-secret financial haven——Delaware——BEFORE taking office.
================================================
<><> Ponzi king Bernie Madoff made a generous contribution to Corzine’s gubernatorial campaign.
<><> When he went to jail, investigators found Madoff had stashed billions offshore---into a labyrinth of financial entities. Some $8.9 billion was funnelled to Madoff through a dozen so- called feeder funds based in Europe, the Caribbean and Central America, ......a labyrinth of hedge funds, management companies and service providers that, to unsuspecting outsiders, seemed to compose a formidable system of checks and balances. But the purpose of this complex architecture was just the opposite: the feeder funds provided different modes for directing money to Madoff in order to avoid scrutiny and generate more fees.
<><><><> Then-Gov Corzine made several highly suspicious trips to Israel when he had no political reason to be there. Israel is the only place in the world where you can take a suitcase full of money to a bank-— and noboody asks where it came from. Isreal also has many businesses in NJ funded with grants from NJ state tax coffers-----as well as a NJ-based Israeli Chamber of Commerce.
All of these entities need rigorous investigation.
Last time anyone check, MF GLobal was a front for Arabs and Islamists whose sole purpose was to pave the way for the next Caliphapte using our money. Oil money will destroy us.
Madoff donated to Corzine’s losing guber campaign.
A coincidence? Hah.
Wonder how much Jersey money Madoff got his hands on.
Two dirty rotten scoundrels.
ping
Another snake slithering out of the MF Global grass? Gary Gensler
MF Global Bankuptcy Revisited: Gary Gensler's Conflicted Role---Feb 3, 2012
Just for starters---from the article (footnoted):
Gary Gensler, the current Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission ("CFTC")
...possible conflict of interest between Jon Corzine and Mr. Gensler based upon their friendship, and a common political and professional involvement.
What follows is a laundry list of connections-the applicability to MF Global comes later.
For starters, Jon Corzine was the Chairman of Goldman Sachs during part of the eighteen years that Gary Gensler worked at Goldman Sachs.
Mr. Gensler donated $10,000 to Corzine's campaign for governor of New Jersey.
They worked together in Congress when Corzine was a Senator and Mr. Gensler a Senate aide.
They worked closely together drafting large portions of the investor protection act, Sarbanes Oxley, while Corzine served on the Senate Banking Committee.
In 2010, Corzine invited Gensler to lecture at Princeton about financial regulation and Gensler also spoke to the audience assembled about his friendship with Corzine.
Gensler donated $300,000 to the prominent Democratic candidates including President Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Corzine has been one of President Obama's elite bundlers, this past April 2011, alone holding an exclusive fundraiser from his Manhattan apartment where he was able to pass the hat around for more than $500,000.
Gensler authored much of the Dodd-Frank Act and analysts like Sandler and O'Neill Partners wrote that they expected Corzine's contacts in Washington as he took over as CEO of MF Global in 2010 to help him "navigates a shifting regulatory environment."[ 1]
In late 2010, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission -- one of MF Global's regulators -- proposed changing one of its regulations, known as rule 1.25, to limit the kinds of investments that firms like MF Global could make using their customers' idle funds, including risky debt of sovereign nations. It was Corzine himself who lobbied for the change in Rule 1.25 to allow for customer-segregated funds to be held in foreign debt instruments.
On July 20, 2011, Corzine said, he "took part" in a conference call with CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler in which MF Global executives made clear their opposition to any changes in rule 1.25. On the call, Corzine said, he argued that the repo transactions with other broker-dealers should be permitted "because such transactions could be beneficial to" firms like MF Global.
Later that same afternoon, Corzine and his General Counsel at MF Global again called the CFTC and again reiterated their view that rule 1.25 should be left alone. Gensler complied.
Had Mr. Gensler changed CFTC Rule 1.25 as he was supposed to do after the passage of Dodd-Frank and not given into lobbying by Corzine....
This is clearly collusion and conspiracy to collude---among many other crimes.
If we can't nail the Wall Street suckers for rigging the financial system to benefit themselves, we can prosecute and jail them for other crimes.
As the CIA says---crooks always leave a paper trail.
Situation is almost hopeless when judges protect wall street because that is where the money is.
Even today the big banks are whining with a letter writing campaign about new rules that would prevent them from speculating (trading) with their own funds (part of the Volcker Rule, a specific section of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act). I’m sure Congress with cave again on this one.
Meant...I’m sure Congress will cave again on this one.
Biden: When the economy was smoldering, I needed to contact Jon Corzine!---YouTube video, 2 1/2 min
During a 2009 re-election campaign appearance for then-New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, Vice President Joe Biden told a crowd how Team Obama repeatedly asked Corzine for advice and trusted him implicitly.
Complete transcript of the video clip (self-transcribed):
One of the early discussions we had, in Chicago, in preparation for the administration, our transition team out there, we got together---I think it was 30, 35 economists, all left, right, center---and what did we talk about? The first question they wanted to raise with us is whether we might need to call a bank holiday, a bank holiday, on the day after we were sworn in.
Ladies and gentlemen, the president and I weren’t back there blaming Jon Corzine then. You know what we were doing? We were on the phone calling Jon Corzine — literally. I literally picked up the phone and called Jon Corzine, and said, ‘Jon, what do you think we should do?’
The reason why we called Jon is because we knew he knew about the economy, about world markets, about how we had to respond, unlike almost anyone we knew. And because he had been in the pit, he had been in the furnace. And we trusted his judgment.
And everybody kind of forgets this, but what we heard from Jon is what we needed to do. What we needed to do, we needed a serious economic recovery plan. I’m not doing this for applause, as they used to say ‘Ain’t brag man, just fact, just the facts.' The facts were, Jon, leading your legislature, was already moving in New Jersey on an economic stimulus package---before anybody else was.
But Jon knew--- Jon knew what other governors know but many didn’t acknowledge, that it wasn’t sufficient. No state was big enough. As strong and as wealthy and as powerful as your state, no state was big enough to be the economic engine for national growth.
So Jon suggested, and laid out, and we talked a long time about what the elements of the recovery package, nationally, should be. We knew that without a national package it wouldn’t work, and Jon was right.
You talk about Christie being wrong, I could start a mantra where John was right. Jon was right about this.
"As the video closes, the Democratic partisans in the audience are heard chanting, “Jon was right! Jon was right!"”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
But, here is Christie, recounting his first year after beating Corzine...
My chief of staff, in my first week as governor, brought me a sheet of paper that showed me that if I did not act immediately to stop the planned spending, that New Jersey would not meet its payroll for the second pay period in March. Imagine that. The state that has the second highest per capita income in America had so over-spent, over-borrowed, and over-taxed – that it would not meet payroll in March of 2010.
So we acted immediately to use the executive authority of the governorship to impound $2.2 billion in projected spending. Without the permission of the legislature. Without compromise because it was not the time for compromise. And without raising taxes on the people of the state who had had their taxes raised and fees 115 times in the eight years preceding my governorship. 115 tax and fee increases in eight years.
So we impounded spending and we balanced the budget. And we turned immediately towards this fiscal year that we’re in now. And were confronted with an $11 billion budget deficit on a $29 billion budget. The highest budget deficit by percentage of any state in America.
And believe me: the partisan Democrats in my state believed they had me right where they wanted me - he would have to raise taxes. And they put it right down on the table and said they wanted to increase the tax that they love the most – the income tax and specifically they called it the millionaires’ tax.
Obama quotes collected during his campaign speeches for Corzine:
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