Brokerage/bond house claims to have simply lost track of a billion dollars--nobody's fault
Anyone remember a news story about a firm called MF Global?
If that name doesn't ring a bell don't worry: In the grand scheme of things to worry about it was just a tiny blip. A mere Billion dollars of customer money vanished from customer accounts.
That's Billion...with a B. As in, a thousand millions.
But hey, no big deal.
And it's no big deal because the guy who ran the firm was a Democratic senator, Dem governor and Dem fundraiser: Jon Corzine.
CEO of Goldman Sachs from 1994-1999, Corzine personally made an estimated $400 million when that firm went public. He was then elected to the U.S. senate from New Jersey, then elected governor of that state.
In March of 2010, after losing a re-election bid, Corzine was appointed CEO and Chairman of MF Global, a multinational futures broker and bond dealer. On October 31, 2011, trading of MF Global shares was halted and the company declared bankruptcy shortly thereafter.
When the dust settled investigators found a cool Billion dollars was missing from customer accounts. That is, money in customer accounts had been transferred out of those accounts, without the owners' permission or knowledge.
In December of 2011 Corzine appeared before a House committee looking into the matter of the missing Billion. Because this was back when the House was still controlled by the Democrats (after the 2010 blowout but before the winners had taken office), no hard questions were asked, and Corzine had a relatively easy time.
But in March 2012, Bloomberg reported that a memo produced by congressional investigators quoted an internal company e-mail as saying Corzine gave "direct instructions" to use customer money to cover the company's own trading shortfalls. A Corzine spokesperson denied that Corzine ever gave such an order.
So now that you're up to speed, here's the latest: No charges are expected to be filed against any top executives.
Yep, that's right. After 10 months of examining evidence surrounding the mysterious "disappearance" of one Billion dollars, investigators are concluding that "chaos and porous risk controls at the firm, rather than fraud," allowed the money to disappear.
Ya gotta love that last phrase, "...allowed the money to disappear." No one actually, y'know, stole it or nothin'. It just plumb disappeared all on its own.
Yes, that's right, folks: If you get enough money together it becomes sentient and can just walk right the hell out of the room! Pretty weird to watch, eh?
Kinda' like how the credit-card security information choices in Ogabe's campaign contributions mysteriously went from the default ON position to OFF all by themselves--no human intervention whatsoever! I tells ya, it's skeery how capable big amounts of money become.
Y'know, I'm sensing some oddities with the investigation into MF Global: The firm did NOT just misplace a billion bucks. Dat money went *somewhere.* That is, it was in the accounts of more than just a few customers, and at some point one would think it was pulled out of said accounts, since they apparently no longer contain any money.
Someone--presumably a living person-- had to physically order the transfer of funds from account wxyz to some other account. If this isn't the case everyone who has a bank account or brokerage account is in great danger, because apparently a few computers have become sentient and are doing things on their own initiative.
Yeh, dat's it!
Of course not. This is horse-shit, pure and simple. Someone did it, and according to Bloomberg congressional investigators have an email saying Corzine ordered it.
Presumably that email originated from *someone.* Was that person interrogated about the source of his email comment?
Now, I'm not gonna automatically accuse Corzine of either theft or gross negligence, but I can't help noticing that Corzine was a huge "bundler" of contributions to Obama.
So here's a firm that claims to have somehow "lost track" of a billion dollars of customer money, there's an e-mail specifying that the head honcho ordered the money pulled from customer accounts and used to cover the company's losses, he denies it, and both the SEC and Justice let him walk right out. And he just happens to be a major contributor to Obozo.
Wow, what were the odds?
If that name doesn't ring a bell don't worry: In the grand scheme of things to worry about it was just a tiny blip. A mere Billion dollars of customer money vanished from customer accounts.
That's Billion...with a B. As in, a thousand millions.
But hey, no big deal.
And it's no big deal because the guy who ran the firm was a Democratic senator, Dem governor and Dem fundraiser: Jon Corzine.
CEO of Goldman Sachs from 1994-1999, Corzine personally made an estimated $400 million when that firm went public. He was then elected to the U.S. senate from New Jersey, then elected governor of that state.
In March of 2010, after losing a re-election bid, Corzine was appointed CEO and Chairman of MF Global, a multinational futures broker and bond dealer. On October 31, 2011, trading of MF Global shares was halted and the company declared bankruptcy shortly thereafter.
When the dust settled investigators found a cool Billion dollars was missing from customer accounts. That is, money in customer accounts had been transferred out of those accounts, without the owners' permission or knowledge.
In December of 2011 Corzine appeared before a House committee looking into the matter of the missing Billion. Because this was back when the House was still controlled by the Democrats (after the 2010 blowout but before the winners had taken office), no hard questions were asked, and Corzine had a relatively easy time.
But in March 2012, Bloomberg reported that a memo produced by congressional investigators quoted an internal company e-mail as saying Corzine gave "direct instructions" to use customer money to cover the company's own trading shortfalls. A Corzine spokesperson denied that Corzine ever gave such an order.
So now that you're up to speed, here's the latest: No charges are expected to be filed against any top executives.
Yep, that's right. After 10 months of examining evidence surrounding the mysterious "disappearance" of one Billion dollars, investigators are concluding that "chaos and porous risk controls at the firm, rather than fraud," allowed the money to disappear.
Ya gotta love that last phrase, "...allowed the money to disappear." No one actually, y'know, stole it or nothin'. It just plumb disappeared all on its own.
Yes, that's right, folks: If you get enough money together it becomes sentient and can just walk right the hell out of the room! Pretty weird to watch, eh?
Kinda' like how the credit-card security information choices in Ogabe's campaign contributions mysteriously went from the default ON position to OFF all by themselves--no human intervention whatsoever! I tells ya, it's skeery how capable big amounts of money become.
Y'know, I'm sensing some oddities with the investigation into MF Global: The firm did NOT just misplace a billion bucks. Dat money went *somewhere.* That is, it was in the accounts of more than just a few customers, and at some point one would think it was pulled out of said accounts, since they apparently no longer contain any money.
Someone--presumably a living person-- had to physically order the transfer of funds from account wxyz to some other account. If this isn't the case everyone who has a bank account or brokerage account is in great danger, because apparently a few computers have become sentient and are doing things on their own initiative.
Yeh, dat's it!
Of course not. This is horse-shit, pure and simple. Someone did it, and according to Bloomberg congressional investigators have an email saying Corzine ordered it.
Presumably that email originated from *someone.* Was that person interrogated about the source of his email comment?
Now, I'm not gonna automatically accuse Corzine of either theft or gross negligence, but I can't help noticing that Corzine was a huge "bundler" of contributions to Obama.
So here's a firm that claims to have somehow "lost track" of a billion dollars of customer money, there's an e-mail specifying that the head honcho ordered the money pulled from customer accounts and used to cover the company's losses, he denies it, and both the SEC and Justice let him walk right out. And he just happens to be a major contributor to Obozo.
Wow, what were the odds?
posted by SF at
9:18 AM
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