The Corzine Rule

The Corzine Rule

Why is John Corzine Not In Jail?

Came across this article on May 29 that talks about the continuing saga of MF Global and Jon Corzine. It’s amazing that this epic financial scandal gets no consistent main stream media coverage. Over a billion was stolen. Corzine is in Madoff territory.

Here is the proposed rule,

Futures brokers would need to get approval from a top executive before making big withdrawals from customer accounts under a rule now pending and referred to in the industry as the “Corzine rule”, after MF Global’s former CEO Jon Corzine.

Why is this stupid? Because it wasn’t a lack of rules that allowed Corzine to steal from customer accounts. It was a lack of ethics on the part of one person. Corzine stole the money to margin bad trades he made through his MF account. He invested in European bonds, chasing yield and seeking to make big proprietary profits for MF Global. Their earnings were under huge pressure because the operations of the company weren’t particularly efficient, and the yields on US Treasury debt are so low that they weren’t able to earn a projected return on excess deposits.

The MF Global fraud is just another blip in the continuous waterfall of events that further erodes the general public’s confidence in the public markets. Nothing that government, regulators, the Fed, or exchanges have done since the crash of 2008 has done anything to shore up the spirits of the public.

Enron, Worldcom, Fannie and Freddie, Madoff, Flash Crash, Corzine and MF Global, the Facebook ($FB) IPO. It doesn’t end and I am sure I am forgetting a few. It’s no wonder the public considers a mason jar as an acceptable place to put money. The ultimate risk off trade!