Corzine Ties (MF Global) put Dems in tricky position

We covered Corzine's fall from grace in a previous article when he resigned or was forced out as CEO of MF Global as they were forced into bankruptcy due to the fact there were missing at least $700M.

It was reported earlier this week that MF Global was being investigated by federal regulators after hundreds of millions of dollars in customer money was said to be missing. According to a federal official, an executive at MF Global had admitted that the company had used clients’ cash as the firm was struggling with bad debt on European sovereign debt.

Since that article on 4 November, an article on November 11 shows MF Global  has fired everyone and liquidated assets: 

Bankrupt Corzine firm fires everyone -- MF Global announces sacking its 1,066 employees to liquidate assets, according to the AP. Jon Corzine’s bankrupt financial firm fired all of its employees Friday, the latest development in the stunning collapse of the former New Jersey governor’s ...

The amount of missing money has now grown as well:

On Nov 21 2011:  Trustee: Corzine firm short $1.2B customer's money. 

In less than a month IMF Global has gone from missing $700M in customer's money to $1.2B and the question of the day is if this will increase even more.  Sad day for customer's who trusted MF Global headed by Jon Corzine.

Democrats need to return the money Corzine has donated while he was head of MF Global which then needs to be given to the customers who lost the money IMHO.

Bets are that Corzine will take the 5th if questioned by a Congressional comittee.  He has already lawyered up for civil lawsuits he is expecting from former clients trying to get some of their money returned.

Now Democrats have to decide if they are going to keep the Corzine money: 

Corzine ties put Dems in tricky position
By Alexander Bolton - 12/04/11 05:00 PM ET 

Jon Corzine, former CEO of MF Global, has given tens of thousands of dollars to the Democratic Party in recent months, putting Democratic lawmakers in awkward positions ahead of Corzine’s subpoenaed appearance before a House committee next week. 

The House Agriculture Committee wants Corzine to explain the financial collapse of MF Global and what may have happened to clients’ investments. 

A former U.S. senator from New Jersey and governor of that state, Corzine is a longtime leader of the Democratic Party who served as chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in 2004. 

He is also a generous financial supporter of President Obama. 

Corzine gave $15,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee on Sept. 28 and $30,800 to the Democratic National Committee in June. 

While he has contributed to Democrats such as Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), and Reps. Rush Holt (D-N.J.), Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and George Miller (D-Calif.), Corzine has become a political liability to his former allies on the Hill. 

House Republicans are accusing Democrats of hypocrisy for not returning contributions from Corzine, whose brokerage firm may have lost more than $1 billion of clients’ money through improper transactions. 

Republicans will put him in the spotlight Thursday. The House Agriculture Committee has subpoenaed Corzine to testify before the committee at a hearing scheduled Dec. 8.
“His testimony is essential to fulfill our objectives of our constituents,” said Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Okla.). 

The National Republican Congressional Committee has seized on the opportunity.
“Even as Democrats align themselves with the Occupy Movement, those same Democrats have amassed millions in financial contributions from Wall Street,” the GOP committee wrote in a press release last month. 

“The fact that ‘Obama’s guy on Wall Street’ now faces possible criminal charges for the very behavior Democrats pretend to condemn exposes the Democrats’ hypocrisy.” 

The NRCC has called on Democrats to return the money. 

In recent years, Corzine has contributed over $1.8 million to the Democratic National Committee and $130,000 to the DCCC. 

A DCCC spokesman did not return a request for comment Friday afternoon. 

The recipients of Corzine’s campaign contributions include Holt, Pallone, Miller, and Reps. Kathy Hochul (D-N.Y.), Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), Donald Payne (D-N.J.), Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) and Steve Rothman (D-N.J.).
None of those lawmakers sit on the Agriculture Committee. 

Corzine has avoided the press since the collapse of MF Global and his attorney initially told the panel that he would be unable to attend the Dec. 8 hearing. 

Republicans will attempt to turn Corzine into the poster boy of what they claim is Democrats’ cozy relationship with Wall Street. 

Democrats believe that growing public anger directed at Wall Street and income inequality will help them in next year’s election. 

“The number one issue is jobs, the economy and the shrinking income of the middle class particularly when compared to the fact that the highest income people are doing very well,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the Senate Democratic chief political strategist told The Hill this week. 

“We have the higher ground on jobs, economy and middle income’s decline,” he added.
Data compiled by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics shows that Democrats have collected $197 million from the securities and investment industry since 2006. 

Corzine has also bundled hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions for President Obama. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus has called on Obama’s campaign to return the $500,000 Corzine collected on its behalf. 

Excerpt:  Read More at The Hill

How much more of this is looming with other companies/banks?   Have a hunch we are seeing the tip of an iceberg as more of these type situations are outed.  Politicians have been too cozy with Wall Street for years and that ban for State elected officials not being able to take more than $300 in campaign contributions needs extended to federal candidates as well.  When a large amount of a candidate's campaign donations come from Wall Street like Obama and Romney, then you have to wonder the influence of Wall Street on the White House and why we have some banks who are listed as "too big to fail."  

Jon Corzine resigns as Chairman and CEO of MF Global after Bankruptcy Papers Filed

This is no shock as MF Global is under investigation for hundreds of millions of dollars of customer money which is still missing.  Last count it was over $700M.  When you have a CEO who doesn't mind if you lose money if the brokers follow the right path, then your chances are extremely high of failure.

Here is what brought them down:

MF Global has been capsized due to a proprietary trading position the firm has in European sovereign debt. Jon Corzine, who is the former governor of New Jersey and a former CEO of Goldman Sachs, is MF Global's CEO. He has said that he is responsible for the outsized positions that his firm has in European sovereign debt. MF Global's exposure is around $6.3 billion, which represents five times its tangible common equity and is around 26 times its market value of $235 million

My recommendation to any company that is looking for a CEO avoid anyone who was ever involved in Goldman Sachs and that includes the Government when looking for someone to head Treasury or the Federal  Reserve Chair.

Corzine tanked MF Global like he tanked New Jersey.

Jon Corzine quits bankrupt firm
By MJ LEE | 11/4/11 8:19 AM EDT Updated: 11/4/11 1:06 PM EDT 

Jon Corzine is resigning as chairman and CEO of MF Global, just days after the firm filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday. 

The former New Jersey governor and senator has declined a severance package valued at $12.1 million, The Associated Press reports.

It was reported earlier this week that MF Global was being investigated by federal regulators after hundreds of millions of dollars in customer money was said to be missing. According to a federal official, an executive at MF Global had admitted that the company had used clients’ cash as the firm was struggling with bad debt on European sovereign debt. 

The brokerage firm’s board of directors said it authorized the filing of Chapter 11 in order to protect the assets of MF Global Holdings and its subsidiary, MF Global Finance USA.
Corzine lost in the midterm election to Chris Christie, even with President Barack Obama’s efforts to rally support for the former senator.

Read more:  Politico.com

Regulators Investigating MF Global (Jon Corzine's Firm) for Missing Money

How does $750,000,000 in customer money go missing from Jon Corzine's Brokerage Firm?  That's a question that investigators are attempting to answer about just where the missing money went.  Truthfully after reading this paragraph from the article, there is no way if I had money I would invest with MF Global run by Corzine:

One of his hallmark traits, according to the 1999 book “Goldman Sachs: The Culture of Success,” by Lisa Endlich, was his willingness to tolerate losses if the theory behind the trades was well thought out.

Corzine is willing to tolerate losses if the trade is well thought out?  Fine for his money but what about the people investing.  Don't imagine they would have the same thoughts.  When the NY Times is on the story, Corzine and his firm, MF Global, may have a problem.  Did not expect to get this in email from the Times.  Maybe the tide is shifting about Wall Street investors after all that has happened and they are no longer viewed as infallible.  Now if we could only do away with 'too big to fail' we might be getting somewhere.

Where will this investigation lead?  IMHO depends on how much Corzine has donated to Obama for his reelection campaign.  He better open up his checkbook fast if he hasn't already donated.  

October 31, 2011, 6:57 pm Investment Banking | Legal/Regulatory 

Regulators Investigating MF Global for Missing Money 

By BEN PROTESS, MICHAEL J. DE LA MERCED and SUSANNE CRAIG

9:55 p.m. | Updated 

Federal regulators have discovered that hundreds of millions of dollars in customer money has gone missing from MF Global in recent days, prompting an investigation into the brokerage firm, which is run by Jon S. Corzine, the former New Jersey governor, several people briefed on the matter said on Monday. 

The recognition that money was missing scuttled at the 11th hour an agreement to sell a major part of MF Global to a rival brokerage firm. MF Global had staked its survival on completing the deal. Instead, the New York-based firm filed for bankruptcy on Monday. 

Regulators are examining whether MF Global diverted some customer funds to support its own trades as the firm teetered on the brink of collapse. 

The discovery that money could not be located might simply reflect sloppy internal controls at MF Global. It is still unclear where the money went. At first, as much as $950 million was believed to be missing, but as the firm sorted through its bankruptcy, that figure fell to less than $700 million by late Monday, the people briefed on the matter said. Additional funds are expected to trickle in over the coming days. 

But the investigation, which is in its earliest stages, may uncover something more intentional and troubling. 

In any case, what led to the unaccounted-for cash could violate a tenet of Wall Street regulation: Customers’ funds must be kept separate from company money. One of the basic duties of any brokerage firm is to keep track of customer accounts on a daily basis. 

Neither MF Global nor Mr. Corzine has been accused of any wrongdoing. Lawyers for MF Global did not respond to requests for comment. 

Now, the inquiry threatens to tarnish further the reputation of Mr. Corzine, the former Goldman Sachs executive who had sought to revive his Wall Street career last year just a few months after being defeated for re-election as New Jersey’s governor. 

When he arrived at MF Global — after more than a decade in politics, including serving as a Democratic United States senator from New Jersey — Mr. Corzine sought to bolster profits by increasing the number of bets the firm made using its own capital. It was a strategy born of his own experience at Goldman, where he rose through the ranks by building out the investment bank’s formidable United States government bond trading arm. 

Excerpt:  Read More at the New York Times

The Crime Fighter Versus the Corruption Enabler

Town Hall
Donald Lambro
August 27, 2009

WASHINGTON -- Democrat Jon Corzine won the governorship of New Jersey four years ago pledging to bring needed change to a state defined by corruption and the highest property taxes in the country.

And four years later, things did change. The state's Democratic political establishment became more corrupt than ever and its tax burdens heavier than before, in part owing to a pay-to-play culture of corruption the governor did little to combat and a bunch of new fees and taxes that Corzine enacted in the midst of the recession.

Then along came U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie for the district of New Jersey, a beefy, crime-fighting paladin who promptly began filling up the state's prisons with scores of crooked politicians, including mayors, lawmakers and other elected and public officials.

Christie soon became the most famous crime fighter in the state and a breath of fresh air to its dispirited voters, and polls were showing the New Jersey Republican leading Corzine by double digits. He resigned his post in December and began a campaign to clean up Trenton, rebuild the state's battered economy through lower taxes, and enact a new code of stringent ethical reforms throughout the government.

But before Christie stepped down, he had won convictions or guilty pleas from 130 public officials and had put in place a massive, statewide investigative net that last month snared another 44 public officials -- with more arrests likely to come.

The latest arrests couldn't have come at a worse time for Corzine. They showed that statewide corruption ran deeper than even the most cynical observers had feared and that the only political solution was to install a reform government determined to clean house.

Christie doesn't mince words when he talks about who bears the lion's share of the blame, placing it squarely on the governor's doorstep.

According to New York Times story, Christie considers Corzine an "obvious bystander," an "enabler" of corruption and "the No. 1 financier of corrupt politicians and county bosses in New Jersey."

EXCERPT: Click Here for Full Article

NOTE: Typical crooked Dem -- attack with lies not facts and hope to get reelected so he can continue to take care of his buddies. Hopefully, New Jersey has had a wake-up call to Corzine and the corruptness he oversees in New Jersey.