As the Wall Street company run by Democrat Jon Corzine crumbles, it appears $900 million is missing. Now the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are opening inquiries.
MF Global Holdings Ltd’s collapse is the latest embarrassment for Corzine, who served as one of the Democratic Party’s top political leaders as a U.S. Senator and New Jersey governor. Only this last spring he was on the short list to replace President Obama’s Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner.
Corzine was the co-author of the controversial Oxley-Sarbanes financial laws. He also was an early advocate for universal health insurance and supported the new difficult financial regulations passed under the Dodd-Frank law. The financial services law, passed last year, is so complex the Obama administration has delayed its implementation
Now many MF Global customers worry as the company faces insolvency due to Corzine’s personal decision to bet 6.2 billion of the company’s own money on European sovereign debt. Before bankruptcy court yesterday the company listed its debt at $39 billion and assets to be $41 billion. However, at least $900 million is unaccounted for.
The FBI is reportedly investigating to see if any customer money is missing and who may have taken it. The CFCT, a regulator of MF Global also is preparing to determine where the customer funds are. Corzine was one of the chief deal makers at MF Global and he is reported to have personally undertaken many of the European trades himself.
The collapse of MF Holdings is causing chaos among many companies and brokerage firms that depended on the company for commodity and futures trading. Many traders cannot get their funds out of MF Holdings and the discovery that $900 million is missing will force them to wait longer.
The demise of MF Holdings is a black eye for Corzine and perhaps for Democrats politicians associated with him.
That hasn’t been the case so far. Failing miserably and cheating on his taxes hasn’t hurt Geithner.
And it won’t be. The regular media will scrupulously omit any mention of his party affiliation, never mind referencing things like this from back in July: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/bam_recruits_corzine_to_woo_back_rhuDmIaaH8fOvWAPSMTDOL.
Of course, that was seen as fine back then because it was a positive for the President. It might look unfavorably on the President’s judgement, so from now on it never existed.
Jim Miller yesterday pointed out the lunacy of applying to any company with fiduciary responsibilities the name of “MF”.
In other news on the MF Holdings front whitewash futures soared. Chinese whitewas factories already swamped with Operation Fast and Furious orders braced themselves for a new flood of orders. US media alone is reported to have doubled their purchases. “Just in Case”
The number has been revised down to only (Ha!) about $700 million. The issue is not so much where the customer money is (because it is gone forever) but that it was not kept separate from the Firm’s own money and was used to cover cash shortfalls as the Firm got into trouble due to bad bets on Europe. The question now will be was this a common practice or a one-time thing. If this was common practice i would expect to see jail time for Corzine and other top jobs at MF. As a NJ native I say good riddance.
I wonder how much longer Jonathan Alter and the old-guard media will continue to claim that the Obama WhiteHouse is and remains “Scandal Free”?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-27/obama-miracle-is-white-house-free-of-scandal-commentary-by-jonathan-alter.html
“Obama’s Teflon intriguing” ?!?!?
NO Jonathan, the Teflon coatings you and your Journ0list comrades are helping to apply are increasingly transparent.
– still be welcome at CNBC and MSNBC?
So when do the OWS protestors get there?