Taibbi: The MF Global Gamble and Jon Corzine's Lost Weekend

[seafan]

It doesn't matter what party they belong to--- corruption is corruption. Can't help but wonder if this could have been avoided if DOJ had gone after these guys across the board from the beginning.

And, for that matter, if Obama had not appointed to his Cabinet and close advisory positions those who created the ripoff in the first place.... oh, well. Not a comforting picture.



Taibbi:


November 2, 2011

How about that Jon Corzine, eh? It seems New Jersey’s finest self-bought ex-Senator bet heavily on European debt, got walloped by a cavalcade of AIG-style collateral calls streaming in from outraged creditors, and tried to stave off the inevitable by commingling client cash with his own account.

From what I gather, Corzine essentially reached into the company cash register to pay off his gambling debts.

.....

That a former U.S. Senator and head of, ahem, the world’s most powerful investment bank would stoop to such depths is being described as shocking in some quarters. The New York Times said MF’s behavior violated a “fundamental tenet of Wall Street regulation: Customers’ money must be kept separate from company money.”

Humorously, the night before it all came out, Corzine appeared at a steak dinner and wowed the crowd with a “spectacular speech” about his years running Goldman and then entering politics. “There was no sense at all that there was impending doom,” said one of the event’s attendees.

Just another thing to keep in mind when you hear all of these bank CEOs confidently denying that they’ve ever done anything wrong, or that their companies might be sitting atop ticking time bombs of toxic assets that we’ll all end up paying for. These people are fantastic liars, right up until the moment the FBI starts rifling through their filing cabinets.

DOJ, it's past time to incarcerate these criminals.


And not just Bernie Madoff, who ripped off rich people. Of course, HE went to prison.