That, essentially, was what Jon Corzine, ex-governor and ex-Senator from New Jersey had to say when questioned by the a House investigative committee about the high dollar bankruptcy of his firm, MF Global:
Corzine faced hostile questioning after being subpoenaed to testify before the House of Representatives' agriculture committee on the bankruptcy of the financial firm and the missing money – some of which is owed to farmers who used the company to hedge crop investments.
The former Goldman Sachs chief and one-time confidant of Barack Obama was the first former senator to be subpoenaed to appear before Congress since 1908.{....}
In a prepared testimony, Corzine said: "Recognizing the enormous impact on many people's lives resulting from the events surrounding the MF Global bankruptcy, I appear at today's hearing with great sadness. My sadness, of course, pales in comparison to the losses and hardships that customers, employees and investors have suffered as a result of MF Global's bankruptcy. Their plight weighs on my mind every day, every hour. And, as the chief executive officer of MF Global at the time of its bankruptcy, I apologize to all those affected."
Corzine said he had "limited access to many relevant documents" since departing from the firm in November: "I simply do not know where the money is."
Corzine quit MF Global days before it was forced to declare bankruptcy, driven to collapse after investors lost confidence following its series of bets on European debt. All 1,066 employees have been fired and a court-appointed trustee is searching for missing funds.
The firm has been accused of being "over leveraged" – relying too heavily on borrowed money, but Corzine said he had reduced the debt at MF Global from $37.3 for every $1 the firm held to "around $30". He admitted the ratio was still far higher than he would have wanted.
I was asked by a long time reader to comment on this, and decided to put this out there in case anyone else has been following this story.
It's fairly simple,the way I see it.
You have a Well Connected Democrat, ex-head of Goldman Sachs, a former Senator and Governor. He uses his prestige, connections and name value to bring in the fish for a Ponzi scheme. To add to the pot, he uses his connections further to borrow against the firm's holdings, When it collapses, "gosh, I don't know what happened! Sorry 'bout that.."
As if he doesn't know where $1.2 bil went...it's not exactly a bookkeeping or rounding error, is it?
Either he realized what was coming, stole the money and has it safely squirreled away somewhere or somebody beat him to it and he has reasons of his own for not wanting to reveal the details.
My father of blessed memory used to tell me that you were an idiot if you stole anything small. Had Corzine knocked off a bank or a liquor store, he'd be scheduled to do hard time in a federal or state pen. For stealing oodles more with a pen or a few clicks of a mouse, he'll spend that time in a relatively comfortable white collar minimum security joint and lose most of his sentence due to good behavior.
Anyone want to bet that if the courts try to seize and sell off some of his other assets to satisfy judgments by the defrauded investors who put money into MF Global that they'll out those assets are hopelessly over leveraged too?
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