Wall Street firm MF Global has gone bankrupt in the wake of a massive loss of confidence from investors who found out the firm had a $6.3 billion bet on the credit of some pretty shaky European countries. Much worse than simply making a large, risky bet which had the potential to destroy the firm and put 3000 jobs at risk, MF Global seems to have also used its clients’ money to make these bets for its own accounts. This mixing of client and corporate accounts is highly unethical and probably illegal.
Where were the regulators? Why is this kind of thing still happening? Will anyone be prosecuted for their illegal behavior? Maybe you should ask US Attorney General Eric Holder. The main person behind this risk-taking at MF Global? Jon Corzine, former Goldman Sachs CEO, New Jersey governor, and US senator (D-NJ). Can such a powerful man be held accountable in today’s America?
More coverage of the story can be found at Bloomberg Business Week.
12 Responses to “Another Criminal Financial Firm Goes Bust”
I guess I know what sign I’ll be holding during next march.
I also wonder if there is a way to move U.S. Attorney General closer to the decision to prosecute this gentleman.
GL,
OccupyBoston has taken the first step – to report on news like these that resonate with the majority of supporters. However, it seems that the movement is not as mature as OccupyWallStreet to mobilize people towards specific causes with CALLS TO ACTION.
I would suggest you start your own petition here:
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions
Let us know if you created one and I will sign it and pass it forward to others to sign. Then maybe at one point, if the movement matures to a point where they actually are willing to CALL TO ACTION and decide they want RESULTS not just DISCUSSIONS, maybe then OccupyBoston will post it on their Home Page to encourage other supporters to sign it as well.
But I am in !
This does not sound promising. Can we do any better? 🙂
How about this one – http://signon.org/create_start.html
The one to Obama that you posted above is funny — “Actually take these petitions seriously instead of just using them as an excuse to pretend you are listening”
The sad part is that I tried to sign it and got a “404 Page Not Found” !
Every Occupy city in the country should be running this story up the flagpole and screaming bloody murder! This is exactly what the Occupy movements were formed around.
Here’s an interesting aside – If Corzine had been able to sell MF Global on Sunday, he would have walked away with a $12 million dollar golden parachute. It’s only the fact that potential buyers dug around in the books and found almost 700 million dollars in customers’ money missing that prevented Corzine from being handsomely rewarded for this Lehman Bros-like collapse.
How did it happen again? Easy! Even after 2008, Congress’s owners and Masters on Wall Street issued an imperial decree, “THOU SHALT NOT REGULATE!” And so Congress did not Regulate. And, lo, their Masters looked down on it, and saw that it was Good.
And Washington’s Kabuki Theater of representation By, Of and For the people goes on.
And here are a couple of folks talking about that Kabuki Theater far better than I can –
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/04/opinion/oligarchy-american-style.html?hp
And
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/04/opinion/the-senate-puts-millionaires-before-jobs.html?hp
Should point out the size differences between those firms from the collapse and MF.
MF wasn’t too big to fail- should probably give a ‘little’ credit to the regulators for that – if nothing else.
MF was a confidence collapse more than anything.
Well, some of them did sit up and take notice when a small brokerage firm all of a sudden held over 6 Billion dollars in foreigh debt – and were leveraged almost 40 to 1!
But Corzine backed them down as the article I reference below describes.
This was Lehmen Bros. in miniature.
THOU SHALT NOT REGULATE.
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/as-regulators-pressed-changes-corzine-pushed-back-and-won/?hp
andyk – I know you help with this website – what do you think of adding a ‘join our mailing list’ link like OccupyWorcester did (note that they also have a way to unsubscribe)
http://visitor.r20.constantcontact.com/manage/optin?v=001P1yAzTPelCxS_BDq1Mnq0zbT8CZZ8YdovoqNih7aB5yKZomjJC9YB9A4sJn0B_t-aSv2U-fMZAo5USBzwAqsuA%3D%3D
Hmmm…this guy was the uber-liberal Democrat governer from New Jersey, the guy who promoted ever bigger government–just like most of the occupiers if you have any kind of recurring theme.
And he after running New Jersey into the ground he did so in the private sector.
Hey I thought Dodd-Frank and the all-power Liz Warren-sp=awned agency was supposed to detect and prevent prevent this sort of thing?
Good god. You guys are extremely well-meaning and for the most part sincere, but I have never seen a more over-educated, under-thinking group in my life.
Another liberal democrat (Corzine) using his crony ties to the Obama administration to his advantage.
BTW, note that he went bust becuase he bet there was no chance Greek would be allowed to default.
WRONG.
If we do not cut spending now, the unravelling and wretching pain you see in Greece is us in twenty years.
Choose your path wisely.