Posted on 12/17/2011 8:38:03 PM PST by blam
Liquidation Of Customer Stored Gold And Silver Bullion From MF Global
Commodities / Gold and Silver 2011
Dec 17, 2011 - 12:27 PM
By: Jesse
The bottom line is that apparently some warehouses and bullion dealers are not a safe place to store your gold and silver, even if you hold a specific warehouse receipt. In an oligarchy, private ownership is merely a concept, subject to interpretation and confiscation.
Although the details and the individual perpetrators are yet to be disclosed, what is now painfully clear is that the CFTC and CME regulated futures system is defaulting on its obligations. This did not even happen in the big failures like Lehman and Bear Sterns in which the customer accounts were kept whole and transferred before the liquidation process.
Obviously holding unallocated gold and silver in a fractional reserve scheme is subject to much more counterparty risk than many might have previously admitted. If a major bullion bank were to declare bankruptcy or a major exchange a default, how would it affect you? Do you think your property claims would be protected based on what you have seen this year?
You always have counter-party risk if you hold gold and silver through another party, even if they are a Primary Dealer of the Federal Reserve. As Ben said, the Fed offers no seal of approval.
If a Bankruptcy Trustee can pool your bullion into the rest of the paper assets and then liquidate it at prices that are being front run by the Street, you will have to accept whatever paper settlement that they give you.
The customer money and bullion assets are not lost, or rehypothecated or anything else. This is a pseudo-legal fig leaf, a convenient rationalization.
The customer assets were stolen, and given to at least one major financial institution by MF Global to satisfy an 11th hour margin call in the week of their bankruptcy, even as MF Global was paying bonuses to its London employees. And now that powerful financial institution does not want to give the customer money back. And they are so powerful that the Trustee and the Court is reluctant to try and claw it back. And so in the great Wall Street tradition they are trying to force the customers and the public to take the loss. The regulators and the exchange are aghast, and are trying to imagine how to resolve and spin this to preserve investor confidence and prevent a run on the system.
'Let them eat warehouse receipts.'
For many this would have been unthinkable only a few months ago. They had been cautioned and warned repeatedly, but chose to trust the financial system. And now they are suffering loss and anxiety, frozen assets, and the misappropriation of their wealth.
How more plainly can it be said? The US financial system as it now stands cannot be trusted to observe even the most basic property rights as it continues to unravel from a long standing culture of fraud.
Get your money as far away from Wall Street as is possible. And if you want to own gold and silver, take delivery and store it in a secure private facility outside the fractional reserve system.
Barrons
The Silver Rush at MF Global
By ERIN E. ARVEDLUND
December 17, 2011
It's one thing for $1.2 billion to vanish into thin air through a series of complex trades, the well-publicized phenomenon at bankrupt MF Global. It's something else for a bar of silver stashed in a vault to instantly shrink in size by more than 25%.
That, in essence, is what's happening to investors whose bars of silver and gold were held through accounts with MF Global.
The trustee overseeing the liquidation of the failed brokerage has proposed dumping all remaining customer assets—gold, silver, cash, options, futures and commodities—into a single pool that would pay customers only 72% of the value of their holdings. In other words, while traders already may have paid the full price for delivery of specific bars of gold or silver—and hold "warehouse receipts" to prove it—they'll have to forfeit 28% of the value.
That has investors fuming. "Warehouse receipts, like gold bars, are our property, 100%," contends John Roe, a partner in BTR Trading, a Chicago futures-trading firm. He personally lost several hundred thousand dollars in investments via MF Global; his clients lost even more. "We are a unique class, and instead, the trustee is doing a radical redistribution of property," he says.
Roe and others point out that, unlike other MF Global customers, who held paper assets, those with warehouse receipts have claims on assets that still exist and can be readily identified.
The tussle has been obscured by former CEO Jon Corzine's appearances on Capitol Hill. But it's a burning issue for the Commodity Customer Coalition, a group that says it represents some 8,000 investors—many of them hedge funds—with exposure to MF Global. "I've issued a declaration of war," says James Koutoulas, lead attorney for the group, and CEO of Typhon Capital Management.
At stake is an unspecified, but apparently large, volume of gold and silver bars slated for delivery to traders through accounts at MF Global, which filed for bankruptcy on Oct. 31. Adding insult to the injury: Of the 28% haircut, attorney and liquidation trustee James Giddens has frozen all asset classes, meaning that traders have sat helplessly as silver prices have dropped 31% since late August, and gold has fallen 16%. To boot, the traders are still being assessed fees for storage of the commodities...
Mark
What are the chances that safety-deposit boxes in banks could be raided for the same purpose? (No wonder grandma buried hers in a mason jar in the garden.)
Mine are underground too.
If you can’t roll around naked in your bullion or drop a bar on your toe, you don’t own it. You must physically posses it.
I wonder how the markets will react Monday, (If they open Monday).
They do it all the time.
Always an innocent mistake.
Always.
You had gold in that box?
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha.
Of course you did.
HA Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha...
When we mistakenly emptied your box all we found was this chipped ashtray from the King David Hotel.
Here we saved it for you.
University of Texas Takes Delivery Of $1 Billion In Physical Gold
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2705999/posts
Zero Hedge ^ | 04/16/2011 | Tyler Durden
Posted on Sat Apr 16 2011 19:15:45 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time) by The Magical Mischief Tour
Saw this and thought, hmm...after our conversation last Tuesday about what Ann Barnhardt had to say, I thought you would be interested in reading this article.
Back in July 2008 I became concerned the stock market would crash. I talked my dad into closing out his investment accounts, paying the penalty, and putting all his money in hard gold, silver, and bank CDs.
It turned out to be the right thing to do.
The reason I mention it now is because the broker tried to talk dad into buying gold and storing it out of physical reach in some vault. We didn’t do that, and what has happened to these people in the article is an excellent example of why I think the way I do!
Corzine stole the money because he knew he could get away with it.
And, of course, he did get away with it. (The dog-and-pony show at the Capitol was funny, though.)
Very Very Bad.
Ann Barnhart may turn out to be right about the impact of MF Global Failure. Next shoe to drop is the Derivatives market which MF Global was a large player in.
Thoughtful, thank you.
Well I for one am glad that Bill Clinton was paid mega-bucks as a “consultant” for the democrat party infested MF Global.
I am sure all the investors will receive that patented liberal treatment: You will be robbed blind by expert thieves.
The chances of that happening are about 100%.
Exactly!!!
If you don’t got it, you don’t get it...[physically or mentally]
bling
Kill the men...
Kill the elves...
Save the gold...
For ourselves!!!
“If you can’t pick it up and run with it, you don’t really own it.” Robert Heinlein.
But blam, Chairman Obama has already hired enough regulators so nobody would be “to big to fail.”
Corzine was a loyal Democrat, and - - - . Are all Democrats bad “persons, “ or just bad managers of other peoples money?
What is Chairman Obama going to do? Obama can’t hire more regulators, as he has already proven that it only encourages monetary failure. Obama can’t do anything himself, as he is incompetent on anything involving money, logic or personnel.
blam, what EVER is Chairman Obama going to do?!! Oops, I forgot. Problem solved! Chairman Obama is going to take a golfing vacation at a location that is far, far from legislation or frustration. Whatta guy!
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