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To: Fee
The real problem is it may very well be that what MFG did was perfectly legal. For instance, if you have a margin account - you have borrowed from your broker - the broker can legally pledge 140% of what you have borrowed of your assets held in the account (in the US, in England, it is unlimited). And if MFG offered the assets as repo's, apparently the lender owns the pledged assets upon declaration of insolvency by the counter party.

So, lets see, you have $250,000 in assets at MFG, you've borrowed $100k to acquire those assets, you think that you're good for $150k. Wrong! MFG has pledged $140k of your assets for the cash loan. You only have $110k on account, $40k of what you thought was yours vanishes when MFG defaults. Tough luck!

14 posted on 02/19/2012 5:11:04 PM PST by GregoryFul (We all live in an Idiocracy, an Idiocracy, an Idiocracy...)
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To: GregoryFul

What about those without a margin account. Were they affected?


16 posted on 02/19/2012 5:22:46 PM PST by Ken H (Austerity is the irresistible force. Entitlements are the immovable object.)
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To: GregoryFul

If this is how commodity brokerage firms operate, then our entire farming system will be impacted. Farmers, silo owners and etc use hedging as part of their risk management for growing and harvesting crops. Imagine farmers all decide to sell locally and not risk losing their life savings to commodity companies who may secretly take on high risk investments, go bankrupt and seize the farmers entire account, or grain operator loses all his grain because it is collateral for his accounts. Gov better fix this or else there will be physical consequences in our food system and supermarket in US regions that do not have many farms.


21 posted on 02/19/2012 9:19:48 PM PST by Fee
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