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| photo, Reuters, this link |
Start with Strib coverage, here, because it's a hoot, e.g., this excerpt:
Corzine can't explain how his brokerage mislaid $1.2B
Article by: JIM SPENCER , Star Tribune
Updated: December 8, 2011 - 9:13 PM
The collapse of MF Global in turn froze the trading accounts of thousands of farmers across the nation.
WASHINGTON - After several hours of questioning by members of the House Agriculture Committee, Jon Corzine still could not explain why brokerage house MF Global is missing $1.2 billion in client funds.
"I simply do not know where the money is," Corzine, the Democrat and one-time U.S. senator and governor from New Jersey, said Thursday.
[...] Corzine told committee members he was "stunned" when, on Oct. 30, company officials told him they "could not account for hundreds of millions of dollars of client money." The next day, MF Global declared insolvency in what could be the eighth-largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history.
"What did you do when you first found out?" asked Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-Calif.). "Did you call the police? Did you run to the bathroom and throw up?"
Corzine replied that he told his management team, "Let's recheck the figures."
The numbers could never be reconciled. Desperate attempts to sell MF Global failed, [they should have tried a sale to Dan Quayle] and the company went under.
[...] Corzine, the former head of Goldman Sachs, said he had "no intention to ever authorize the transfer of segregated moneys." But he could not assure the committee that the company never transferred money from segregated accounts in what Corzine called "chaotic" days leading up to the bankruptcy. He described an atmosphere of heated trading with many more transactions than usual taking place.
[...] Rep. Collin Peterson, a Minnesota Democrat and the agriculture committee's ranking minority member, challenged Corzine to explain MF Global's risky investment policies. Those policies included buying billions of dollars' worth of bonds issued by Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland, all countries struggling to pay their bills. Once it purchased the European bonds, MF Global used them as collateral to borrow money.
That's enough, read it at Strib. Bottom line in all this? Greece gets NO RESPECT. All the other basket cases, not Greece. The Greeks should be furious being that dissed.
Other coverage, Bloomberg, here,
[...] Testifying under oath, Corzine said he didn’t knowingly authorize any movement of funds out of client accounts, and that any transfers of money could have been a misunderstanding or misinterpretation of his intent.
“I’m not in a position, given the number of transactions, to know anything specifically about the movement of any specific funds,” Corzine said.
After one exchange, Representative K. Michael Conaway, a Texas Republican, said: “I understand why you keep using ‘intent.’ I’m not trying to pin you down, we’re not the prosecution.”
Corzine also repeatedly said that he didn’t “direct” anyone to move funds. That was also a careful choice of words, according to Seth Taube, head of the trial section in the New York office of law firm Baker Botts LLP.
[...] Corzine said he wasn’t an expert in payment, clearing and settlement systems and didn’t view reports daily on the segregation of client funds. Instead, he said he was “stunned” to learn of the shortfall and repeatedly described a state of “chaos” at the firm in the last days before its bankruptcy.
Sarbanes-Oxley
James W. Giddens, the trustee overseeing the liquidation of MF Global, has estimated that $1.2 billion is missing. If that’s because of internal errors at MF Global, Corzine may have breached responsibilities under Sarbanes-Oxley rules, according to Daniel Collins, a professor of accounting at the University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business.
Under the 2002 law -- for which Corzine voted as senator -- top executives must certify the accuracy of financial statements and assess whether they have sufficient safeguards to catch fraud and bookkeeping errors. Corzine signed off on MF Global’s quarterly reports prior to the bankruptcy.
What a piece of work. Former Goldman Sachs head, former Governor of New Jersey [aka Zygi-land], former US Senator, weaseling to not admit any mental state equivalent to that needed for criminal liability; suggesting somebody who led the Gambling casino known as Goldman Sachs of mega-bailout fame while Joe Ordinary in Blaine or Wright County got foreclosed and hammered into a thin layer, is so inept that customer money to the tune of $1.2 billion evaporated, evanesced, transmorgified, and/or went down a toilet spiral --- or for all Corzine knows ended up in numbered accounts, somewhere, but without Corzine's knowledge of course, ... because what, all the time he was chasing blondes or addicted to porn?
Give me a break. Put him in the Slammer for the rest of his life. And ten years after that.
Bernie MadofF's cellmate, let them yuk it up at the country-club prison; NO.
Put him in a maximum security slammer, with Mexican drug cartel hit men and other "general population" members, to teach him humility and the importance of prudent avoidance of error and shunning the sin of "inadequate supervision." Not theft, he says he did not take the pile of wealth, he only knows not where it went - trust me - he probably said that too.
USA Today, here. Reuters, here.
This is the kind and quality of person benefiting from the Reagan and Bush tax cuts.
Go figure.
RHETORICAL QUESTION: Do you think you or I could get away with being hauled in front of a Congressional committee in public hearings, with this as an answer?
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_____________UPDATE___________
USA Today published Corzine's prepared statement, here. If you feel yourself incapable of writing 21 pages of self-serving crap, read Corzine's since it is, like programming, a situation where you learn in part by doing and in part by studying and expropriating the skilled efforts of others to meet your needs and purposes.
_____________FURTHER UPDATE____________
Reporting re regulator performance and Gensler of CFTC recusing himself from the MF Global investigation after the firm filed bankruptcy, here, here, here, here, here, see also here, and here. Corzine was Gensler's boss when both were at Goldman Sachs in the 1990's with Corzine CEO of Goldman at the time. More on Goldman Sachs, with a local stadium flavor; the Deets, here and this Google. Here, for another interesting Goldman-Google.