MF Global scandal have you wallowing in financio-babble?
Our good friend Tamara De Silva has written a series of articles on the MF Global scandal. In her latest piece Tamara presents the information "in English" so that regular folks who are not in the industry can understand it.
This is one of the MUST READ pieces of the year. Here is a teaser:
....a possible conflict of interest between Jon Corzine [former NJ Governor and Democrat Bundler] and Mr. Gensler [CFTC Chairman] based upon their friendship, and a common political and professional involvement. What follows is a laundry list of connections-the applicability to MF Global comes later. For starters, Jon Corzine was the Chairman of Goldman Sachs during part of the eighteen years that Gary Gensler worked at Goldman Sachs. Mr. Gensler donated $10,000 to Corzine's campaign for governor of New Jersey. They worked together in Congress when Corzine was a Senator and Mr. Gensler a Senate aide. They worked closely together drafting large portions of the investor protection act, Sarbanes Oxley, while Corzine served on the Senate Banking Committee.
More...
In 2010, Corzine invited Gensler to lecture at Princeton about financial regulation and Gensler also spoke to the audience assembled about his friendship with Corzine. Gensler donated $300,000 to the prominent Democratic candidates including President Obama and Hillary Clinton. Corzine has been one of President Obama's elite bundlers, this past April 2011, alone holding an exclusive fundraiser from his Manhattan apartment where he was able to pass the hat around for more than $500,000. Gensler authored much of the Dodd-Frank Act and analysts like Sandler and O'Neill Partners wrote that they expected Corzine's contacts in Washington as he took over as CEO of MF Global in 2010 to help him "navigates a shifting regulatory environment."
Read on HERE!
Hmmm I wonder if the CFTC will have the ability to put service before self and investigate their own boss? After what we have already seen in the Obama Administration I am not holding my breath.