Posted on 12/13/2011 7:45:39 AM PST by ken5050
Senate Agricultural Committee hearing on MF Global bankruptcy just starting. Corzine will testify later. First witnesses are MF Global customers, to talk about the impact of the bankruptcy on their lives and businesses. Also scheduled to appear is the trustee for MF Global, who is expected to provide details of what happened, and, oh yeah..where's the money now, the $ 1.2 billion...
What will be most interesting, IMHO, is that given that this is a Senate committee, controlled by the Dems, how the Democrat senators question Corzine, especially those from swing states...the degree of agressiveness, even hostility, they display, will be telling.
Sen Roberts is doing a GREAT job..they are squirming now...
Guess that proves his excuses are recognized as BS!
That is exactly what happened. Corzine looks like the liar that he is here.
String him up.
Dems are pushing pretty hard...no deference to Corzine...they’ve figured out that he’s a slimeball..and don’t want to be perceived as somehow supporting him...
Corzine is all but “taking the 5th” without actually saying so...
Corzine pleads "ignorance" whenever he's on the hot seat.
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SO WHERE IS THE MISSING MF GLOBAL MONIES? Time to connect the dots
<><> 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%.
<><> 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.)
<><> 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 businsses in NJ funded with NJ state “grants” as well as an Israeli Chamber of Commerce.
<><> 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 Japanese bank for Corzine——Sen Corzine passed a bill giving the bank a US tax break......said he did not know the bill benefitted him.
<><> Corzine registered three corporations in super-secret financial haven——Delaware——BEFORE taking office.
<><> All three of the above-named MF Global principals were G/S cronies.
<><> Ponzi king Bernie Madoff made a generous contribution to Corzine’s campaign.
I am surprised, as well——that the Dems are hitting hard.
Some of their constituents who lost money on this musta lit a fire under them.
Is the CIA some sort of god-like entity to you, that you reference it like some font of infallible dicta? That statement about a paper trail was around long before there was a CIA.
For one example, a Batman Comic Book from 1939 includes a story called "The Paper Trail".
I say sic the IRS on them-——check what corz/abel/steink claimed as “interest income.”
That always trips the crooks up.
There will be a clear paper trail, because these events all happened over a few days. They were so desperate to get the funds ( from the customers accounts) to cover the margin calls..that they weren’t worried about a cover-up..they fully expected to put it all back in a day or to, and then bury the switch...
I think that at least one, if not all of these three bozos has already tripped over the “perjury trap”
Oh please-—get a life. That was an attempt at a joke.
Whereras quoting a comic book for serious consideration on this thread is nonsense.
Perjury———and contempt of Congress.
Sarbannes-Oxley and out-sourcing almost guarantee there is an extensive electronic trial almost impossible to erase.
The one requires archiving of all electronic communication and the second makes that archive outside the corporate sanctum.
My comment was more directed at the use of the “CIA” as an infallible authority.
The comic book is a historical artifact clearly demonstrating that the concept “paper trials” as a part of normal detective practice which existed before there was a an overgrowth of Federal Bureaucracy and a CIA.
Batman was a fictional but still PRIVATE SECTOR solution to crime. Does that scare you?
In the instant case of MF Global, PRIVATE SECTOR solutions and investigations would be better than all that comes out of this hearing, I’d bet. Old school practices and concepts of fraud and fiduciary duty fought out mano-a-mano in local equity courts and criminal courts trump the modern Bureaucratic DC Elitocracy and its flaky, hyper-emotional, posturing hearings and its opaque, meandering, investigations, whether those occur in Congressional hearings or by some three letter agency.
The immaturity of the protected, sinecured class — congressmen, bureaucrats is more childish than any comic book.
These hearings are all for show, anyway, but this line of defence is not going to stand scrutiny with investigators, especially with other insiders contradicting them, to save themselves.
From MF Global probe uncovers shady pre-fall trades - NYP, by Mark DeCambre, 2011 December 10
The trades could strike at the heart of the mystery surrounding $1.2 billion in missing customer funds - and help the army of investigators searching for the cash since the Oct. 31 Chapter 11 filing. Just 24 hours earlier, the disgraced Wall Street titan Jon Corzine, MF's former chief executive, told lawmakers in Capitol Hill testimony that he had no idea where the cash was. James Kobak, a lawyer for MF trustee James Giddens, did not provide any details surrounding the shady trades because there are a number of regulatory and criminal probes under way. ..... < snip > ..... Judge Glenn, setting aside creditor objections, approved the distribution of $2.2 billion to MF customers - bringing the trickling distribution to most clients to about 72 percent of their account balance. ..... < snip > < snip > ..... The trustee handling the unwinding of fallen broker dealer MF Global has uncovered some "suspicious" trades made by the company in the last days leading up to its Halloween collapse, a bankruptcy judge was told yesterday.
From Regulator's MF Global Priority: 'Get Back the Money' - CNBC, by Margo D. Beller, 2011 December 08
"We're hearing from customers every day," she said. "They are losing money every day. It is our number one prority those customers get back the money that belongs to them." ..... < snip > ..... Unlike CFTC head Bart Chilton, who told CNBC Monday the agency will likely file criminal charges against MF Global, Sommers would not comment on what comes next, although she said talk of a CFTC "insurance fund" or other policy measures to further protect commodities brokers may come up for discussion "after we know exactly what happened with MF Global." ..... < snip > The first priority of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission is to get the money people entrusted to now-bankrupt MF Global, Commissioner Jill Sommers told CNBC Thursday.
Henri Steenkamp was not only the CFO, who would know, if not explicitly authorized money transfers, he was also a Chief Accounting Officer - the guy keeping the "books" and logging the transactions. He can't possibly avoid responsibility for the "sloppy" or "messy" bookkeping by claiming ignorance.
Another interesting figure to ask would be the director, Chair of the Board's Credit Risk Committee at MFGH, David P. Bolger.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2817060/posts?page=23#23
He was previously EVP at Aon, world's largest risk insurer, and likely, one of the fraud risk insurers of MF Global. If Aon is on the hook, they would not be pleased, though amount of their liability may be relatively small (if customers' accounts money is recovered)
If holding Congress in contempt is a crime, then lock me up.
As CutePuppy so aptly points out..the "I didn't know"..or "I can't recall" apologias ain't gonna cut it...these three are starting to remind me of Josh Steiner, the Clinton staffer who testified to Congress that he "lied to his diary." Indeed, one Senator asked if any of them had kept a diary..LOL
In the wake of the MF bankruptcy, Corzine and the board were criticized in the financial press for their apparent non-awareness of the company’s condition in the immediate lead-up to the event and their apparent inabilities to manage the risk the company had assumed. MF Board at the time of bankruptcy filing:
Jon S. Corzine, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
David P. Bolger, independent member, formerly Chicago 2016 and Aon Corporation
Eileen S. Fusco, attorney and CPA formerly for Deloitte & Touche
David Gelber, independent member, formerly ICAP plc, Citibank NA, Chemical Bank and HSBC
Martin J.G. Glynn, independent member, former CEO HSBC
Edward L. Goldberg, founder of Longview Investments, LLC, formerly Merrill Lynch
David I. Schamis, managing director at J.C. Flowers & Co. LLC, (Chris Flowers oversaw Corzine’s “blind trust” when JC held public office)
Robert S. Sloan, founder and managing partner of S3
As a US Senator Corzine used his office to get a law passed giving a tax break to a troubled Japanese bank——Christopher Flowers (a G/S crony) led the effort to takeover the bank for Corzine’s “blind trust.” Corzine said he “did not know” the law benfited him.
Another MF principal was Bradley Abelow (a G/S crony)-—appointed by Gov Corzine as NJ state Treasurer——Abelow and Corzine controlled billions of NJ’s assets.....many of which promptly disappeared, lost value, while some state agencies went bakrupt.
Treasurer Abelow and Gov Corzine formed an “investment company”....but the “financial geniuses” said they were “not aware” it is illegal for state officials to do so.
In the wake of the MF bankruptcy, Corzine and the board were criticized in the financial press for their apparent non-awareness of the company’s condition in the immediate lead-up to the event and their apparent inabilities to manage the risk the company had assumed. MF Board at the time of bankruptcy filing:
Jon S. Corzine, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
David P. Bolger, independent member, formerly Chicago 2016 and Aon Corporation
Eileen S. Fusco, attorney and CPA formerly for Deloitte & Touche
David Gelber, independent member, formerly ICAP plc, Citibank NA, Chemical Bank and HSBC
Martin J.G. Glynn, independent member, former CEO HSBC
Edward L. Goldberg, founder of Longview Investments, LLC, formerly Merrill Lynch
David I. Schamis, managing director at J.C. Flowers & Co. LLC, (Chris Flowers oversaw Corzine’s “blind trust” when JC held public office)
Robert S. Sloan, founder and managing partner of S3
As a US Senator Corzine used his office to get a law passed giving a tax break to a troubled Japanese bank——Christopher Flowers (a G/S crony) led the effort to takeover the bank for Corzine’s “blind trust.” Corzine said he “did not know” the law benfited him.
Another MF principal was Bradley Abelow (a G/S crony)-—appointed by Gov Corzine as NJ state Treasurer——Abelow and Corzine controlled billions of NJ’s assets.....many of which promptly disappeared, lost value, while some state agencies went bakrupt.
Treasurer Abelow and Gov Corzine formed an “investment company”....but the “financial geniuses” said they were “not aware” it is illegal for state officials to do so.
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