Former New Jersey senator and governor Jon Corzine plans to tell a House committee on Thursday that he “simply” does not know the location of clients’ money that vanished from failed investment firm MF Global, the eighth-largest bankruptcy in U.S. history.
In prepared testimony posted on the House Committee on Agriculture’s website, Corzine apologized to “all those affected” by the firm’s estimated loss of $1.2 billion in client funds.
“I simply do not know where the money is, or why the accounts have not been reconciled to date,” Corzine’s prepared testimony read. “I do not know which accounts are unreconciled or whether the unreconciled accounts were or were not subject to the segregation rules.”
Corzine, 64, has been publicly silent since MF Global filed for bankruptcy on Oct. 31 after an estimated $1.2 billion in client funds vanished. He resigned as CEO on Nov. 4 after leading the firm for roughly 20 months.
“Considering the circumstances, many people in my situation would almost certainly invoke their constitutional right to remain silent — a fundamental right that exists for the purpose of protecting the innocent,” Corzine’s testimony continued. “Nonetheless, as a former United States Senator who recognizes the importance of congressional oversight, and recognizing my position as former chief executive officer in these terrible circumstances, I believe it is appropriate that I attempt to respond to your inquiries.”
Corzine said his involvement in the firm’s clearing, settlement, payment mechanisms and accounting was “limited,” according to his testimony.
“The Members should also understand that the Committee turned down my request to testify voluntarily in January,” Corzine’s testimony continued. “I had hoped that, by that time, I would have obtained and reviewed relevant records so that I could be more helpful to the Committee.”
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
3 Responses
jail.
The entire stock market and public tradings (it isn’t current form), is in my humble opinion absolutely absurd. I’m not an economist nor am i pretending to be an expert on the stock market, but it makes zero sense, its so far away from conventional business. Conventional business methods, such as, selling goods services and products, thru, buying for 1 dollar/selling for 2 (or wtvr logical markup), selling services thru skills/knowledge (doctor/artist) or thru physical labor (farmer), hardly ever failed, unless the demand is no longer there. For example, the demand for saddles isn’t as great in the 20th century as it was in the 18th century, but this isn’t because the business model was wrong, it wasn’t, there isn’t a single factor pointing to a failure in the business model to account for the decrease in demand. On the other hand, the market has to most absurd business model which is bound for failure.
The way I see it, the market is conceptually a perfect idea, it allows people to invest into a partnership thereby giving the company an opportunity to raises additional cash, increase its revenue with the additional cash flow, and share the profits with the investors. So let’s say I would want to purchase the corner fruit store that’s on sale, how much will I be willing to pay for this fruit store? 1.5x its profit? 2x its profit? Or maybe 3x its profit, but 3 would probably be the max I’d pay. Same would be true if I wanted to become a partner in the fruit store. No one in their right mind is going to invest 10x or 20x or 100x the profit of the business, yet this is exactly what the market is doing. Furthermore, if I was looking into buying the fruit store, I’d review years of detailed profit/loss reports and decide the purchase on actual facts. The price for shares in the market (in addition to it being significantly more than the profit), is based on empty quarterly reports full of hypothetical (at times false) assumptions. There’s hardly anything concrete in those reports. Any conservative business person (and even a risk taker), would never look at such a clown report when inquiring to purchase someone else’s business.
I hope I don’t sound like an OWS person (though I wish they would stand for the true WS issues and not this 99% non-sense), but it is true that these wall-street folks are killing us. It’s just too bad that the entire world’s economy is tied into the stock market (to the tone of 39 trillion dollars). People invest their last dime based on these false reports, the company then goes belly up (and why wouldn’t it), someone takes all that money, and the investors (the people) are simply victimized.
Reminds me of Reagan’s testimony….
“I can’t tell you or remember when Bud left that job”
“I couldn’t even remember writing the things that I was writing about.”
“I don’t remember the details at all.”
Later we found out he actually had Alzheimer’s… can Corzine pull that off?