Friday, December 9, 2011

CORZINE: the truth. Rezko, whitewashed with emotion. What a media

From the Chicago Sun-Times
Pale and thin, his legs shackled and bare forearms tightly crossed in a frigid federal courtroom, an unsmiling Tony Rezko on Tuesday looked a faded portrait of the man who stood trial before the same judge 3 ½ years ago.
Just looking at you physically is evidence of the great fall that you have had,” U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve told Rezko.
At that, the pallid Rezko flushed, his eyes welling up.
And this from the New York Times
Fallen financier and former New Jersey governor Jon Corzine said he was "stunned" by the collapse of his firm MF GLOBAL but told a congressional panel that he had no idea where the missing $1.2bn (£780m) had gone.
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.
An exhausted-looking Corzine said he was "devastated" by MF Global's collapse but dodged specific questions about what went wrong or where the money had gone.  (Z: but seems to be of no concern to the NYTimes!)
What about.....?
Any reference to Obama's real estate deal with Rezco?  Nope.  Any reference to Obama's praise of Corzine as an "honorable man" and one of his "best partners" in the White House?  Nope.
Any wonder why the general public isn't out demanding our Campaigner-In-Chief step down? (end)
Z: because they don't HEAR the truth.   THIS is getting scary.

I posted the above information I had sent to me by a friend and then, Thursday night just after getting it ready for midnight publication,  Rich Galen's column, Mullings.com, had the following article (in black below) which gives us even more information (Rich's column being by a Conservative and including a more realistic take on Corzine)........Do you think Corzine will escape his just rewards or actually get nailed for what he's done?  This is astonishing....Will Obama still say he's 'honorable'?
  • There once was a Wall Street firm named MF Global. I'm not sure what they did to make money, but they hired a guy named Jon Corzine, a Democrat, to help them do it.
  • Jon Corzine had once been the head of Goldman Sachs. He was fired from his job while he was on a ski trip with his family by Hank Paulson who was also a Goldman Sachsian, and later became the Secretary of the Treasury who invented the whole TARP thing.
  • Don't think that Mr. Corzine and his family had to live out of an A&P grocery cart under the Manhattan Bridge. He made $400 million when Paulson took Goldman public.
  • Wall Street people operate in a different universe than the rest of us.
  • Corzine, not satisfied with having been one of what was called a "Master of the Universe" by running one of the too-big-to-fail Wall Street firms, went on to run for, and be elected to, the United States Senate from New Jersey in 2000 as a Democrat.
  • Talk about Masters of the Universe.
  • In the wake of the Enron scandal (among others) Democrat Jon Corzine was a big, BIG supporter of what became known as Sarbanes-Oxley which, among other things, forced CEOs to take personal (and criminal) responsibility for reporting what was going on in their companies.
  • This was to prevent investors from losing lots and lots of money due to internal shenanigans by executives at companies who had only the most passing interest in protecting their stockholders' and investors' money.
  • Corzine, back in Master of the Universe mode, decided that being one of 100 Senators was not as cool as being one of 50 Governors so in 2005 he ran for, and was elected as, Governor of New Jersey. As a Democrat.
  • Four years later, in 2009 he ran for re-election but was beaten by Republican Chris Christie of Governor Chris Christie fame.
  • Not one to be put out to pasture, Corzine got himself hired by a firm named MF Global which was a "multinational futures broker and bond dealer."
  • I do not pretend to know that that means because my major financial transactions are limited to things called an ATM and a PIN.
  • MF Global bet heavily on what is known as the sovereign debt of countries in Europe named, among others, Greece and Italy. For those who are into these things, Reuters described it as MF Global having "entered into repurchase and reverse repurchase transactions to maturity, which are accounted for as sales."
  • ATM. PIN.


  • Corzine, a Democrat, who feigned outrage when Enron went down in flames, was the CEO of MF Global which went broke and became the eighth largest bankruptcy in US history.
  • The weekend that MF Global was going down the Wall Street toilet, the Democrat Corzine tried to sell the company. The company with which MF Global was attempting to make a deal couldn't find about $1.2 BILLION dollars that were supposed to be in customers' accounts and so backed out of the deal.
  • It seems that in order to cover its bad bets, MF Global (headed by former Democratic Senator and Governor Jon Corzine) took money from customers' accounts who had no knowledge of this activity and had no interest the bets' successes or failures.
  • This was, as I understand it, like the head of your branch bank taking money out of your checking account and betting it on a camel running in a race in Dubai.
  • MF Global was declared bankrupt. Trading in its shares were halted.
  • Thud.
  • Remember: Corzine. Democrat. Enron. Sarbanes-Oxley. CEO Responsibility for his (or her) firm.


  • Yesterday Jon Corzine was hauled in front of a Congressional Committee to explain just how he could have allowed money in customers' accounts to have been used as collateral against "repurchase and reverse repurchase transactions to maturity."
  • He didn't know. He didn't know what happened to the money. He barely knew what the term "Wall Street" meant or where New York was located.
  • I have no idea whether Jon Corzine will be found criminally liable for what went on at the firm he headed. I DO know that when he was a holier-than-thou member of the United States Senate he was an outspoken advocate of exactly that.
  • My guess is the customers of MF Global will be lucky to get a fraction of their money back.
  • I know this demonstrates my ignorance of big-time finance, but I'm having a really tough time finding much difference between Jon Corzine, Democrat; and Bernie Madoff, crook. 

32 comments:

Karen Townsend said...

It is amazing. And, no comment from Obama or his WH about their good friend Corzine. To think that he came so very close to being nominated as Sec of the Treasury. Gah. Just like Obama - all glowy reputation, no substance or competence.

Bob said...

Corzine will not face any jail time, and will walk away from this little kerfuffle just like any Goldman alumnus. He belongs to two of the most powerful good-old-boys clubs in the world, the Goldman club, and has served as a US Senator.

The interesting thing to me is that the man has become the poster boy of someone who was in the right place at the right time. He is an intelligent individual, but is not as bright as he believes. For someone from the financial sector, his ignorance of economics is strange.

I wonder just where he put that billion dollars. The extra two hundred million is just lunch money for these guys.

Anonymous said...

Amazing! Corzine makes Cunningham look like a petty thief. I hope he goes to jail for a very, very long time. Of course, Corzine said he does not intend to "repay" investors with his own money.

Of greater concern to us should be the amount of influence Goldman Sachs has over domestic financial policy. IMO, Paulson should be in jail, too. And where did Timmy Geithner come from? Why, Goldman Sachs, the IMF, and the NY Federal Reserve Bank, of course.

Mr. Corzine is just another in a long list of bastards who belong in jail, including Jamie Gorelick, Franklin Raines, Nancy Pelosi, both Clintons, and the ever corrupt Barack Obama.

Ducky's here said...

Yeah, Obummer loves him some banksters.

Remember the old days when all you had to worry about was Bebe Rebozo laundering money for Nixon?

They're all crooks now.

FairWitness said...

What chutzpah! Go before the House Agriculture Committee and just say "I dunno what happened to my clients' funds" - really????

Is it really that simple? As an honorable Democrat, you can go before Congress and plead ignorance - after you've had a long history of Wall Street prominence and held prestigious elective office in the US Senate and been New Jersey Governor - and be forgiven your massive crimes by saying you had no intent to defraud your clients, you didn't intend to STEAL your clients' personal accounts????

I hope American voters are watching this massive corruption - it stinks like a ruptured sewer. We have got to take control of this government and dismantle it.

Lisa said...

No mention of those with any connection to Dear Leader. Just like those in his adoring media who carry the water for this president there is plenty more room under that bus.
I wonder if it's the "D" after his name or soemthing else?
I bet Martha Stewart and Bernie Madofff are watching in envy.

Lisa said...

Hmmm so sorry I didn't mean to ignore Solyndra too,my bad.

Z said...

Karen, nice to have you here...
Obama makes no comments of character one way or the other; Chicago's way it so stand by your crook UNLESS it gets too close to YOU, THEN you make up stories and annihilate the guy.
I'm wondering about Blogojovich; was he paid off not to talk? Getting 14 years is a huge surprice considering what he could have said. Let's see how that goes. Will he live through prison if he, indeed, gets there at all?

BOB...you really think he can get out of jail ? Then the Republicans,also, don't have integrity, or someone's paying them off to go easy on him, or our whole good ol' boy network is so fraught with dishonesty and coverup we haven't a chance.
Yes, and a BILLION MISPLACED DOLLARS...how about THAT?

Well, I believe there are millions in Stimulus Money that some are asking about but not asking strongly enough to get answers..why not?

Mustang,
Corzine is acting so miserable and sorry and stupid...as you read my Mullings piece, I'm sure you saw what he's done, even making it more amazing he'll get off. ANd he WILL get off. And, you're right...their influence is bad; how about GE and sending China our manufacturing; by Obama's friend in charge of getting US JOBS!!? Where's the media outrage THERE? ;-)

Nice try, Ducky...rebozo :-) With all the crooks in the Obama administration, Ducky has to dig up Nixon ...well, that speaks pretty well for the Republicans.

FW...you said "honorable Democrat" so your whole premise is wrong, right?

Lisa,the top information on the post makes some Obama connections; but we hear hardly enough; and then CNN must have a department that covers up for him, as sure as the NYTime does, too.

Silverfiddle said...

To back up what Ducky said, they are bi-partisan crooks.

This is where conspiracy theories come from, but it's not some kooky nightmare, there really is a ruling oligarchy.

Z said...

SF, my point is not that this isn't bipartisan... Everybody knows that.
My point is we don't really have to dig back to Nixon and Rebozo for Republican dirt.
Or do we? :-)

SF...Sometimes I think the PC Leftists are banking on most good Americans thinking that most hard to swallow situations are just silly CONSPIRACY THEORIES. They can do an AWFUL lot behind the scenes counting on good Americans to say "Well, THAT would NEVER happen HERE!!~ NOT IN AMERICA"
we need to all start waking up to some of the theories we'd have ignored had some hadn't the courage to at least mention them.
Yes, the left squelches them and calls us the loons for even bringing them up, but rumors that they're still alive in various morphoses are troubling and should make all Americans at least curious enough to pay attention; to keep watch. The only examples I can think of now in my rush to get to work is Van Jones ..we're told with bravado HE IS OUT and oh, no...he is NOT out :-)
or ACORN is CLOSED...oh, no, it is NOT closed. they're silenced, but NOT closed.

see y'all later.'

Elbro, delete him if you feel it's too sarcastic, nasty or just ticks you off ..thanks

Jarhead said...

I say put him in a cell with some guy named Bubba...

Always On Watch said...

Jon Corzine said he was "stunned" by the collapse of his firm MF GLOBAL but told a congressional panel that he had no idea where the missing $1.2bn (£780m) had gone

If true, then he's totally incompetent!

Trekkie4Ever said...

So he doesn't know what happened to the money? Does he really believe that people are going to buy that lame and pathetic excuse?

I think not.

Brooke said...

Another body under Obama's bus!

You're right, Z: The lack of information and reporting from the MSM is truly scary!

Z said...

Leticia, you ask "Does he really believe that people are going to buy that lame and pathetic excuse?"

We've got a media which doesn't even ask who paid for Harvard for Obama, or why he said he didn't know Bill Ayers, or who paid for Columbia, or how he got a big publisher to publish to BIOGRAPHIES of someone who'd done ZILCH by that time and at such a young age, ...we could all go on and ON and on and on, couldn't we.

SO, yes...this will slip through the fingers of good American people who deserve to know where the money is, particularly those farmers to whom some of it's owed.

Z said...

Here's the latest Yahoo headline on the ridiculous turn-down of the Republican tax payroll proposal:

"GOP PAYROLL TAX PROPOSAL REJECTED...
The White House says the legislation introduced by Republicans doesn't meet the president's standards."

His "standards?" Cute slant on a HEADLINE, isn't it? Oh, it didn't meet this stellar man's STANDARDS...not high enough for HIS STANDARDS!? :) That cracked me up.

Of course, the truth is, it's not hurting enough of THE RICH, according to the White House! We can't have THE RICH continuing to make money, help the poor, invest in the market, etcetc...we've got to BRING THEM DOWN, TOO!
Gad, that's a standard, I guess?

#@$(*&@#(*$&@#(*$&#@*($&@(*#&$

Anonymous said...

Amazing, you spread lies and morons come here to discuss them further. Loons.

Z said...

Um...liberaldude, I hate to inform you that there isn't a rumor or lie in the whole post.
Sorry to shatter your dreams

Bloviating Zeppelin said...

YES.

Corzine in DIRECT CONTRAVENTION of Sarbane-Oxley.

It's far PAST time to start putting these fiscal traitors into the GP of federal prisons such as Leavenworth and Terminal Island.

BZ

Bloviating Zeppelin said...

And, once again, LD contributes SO much to the discussion. Perhaps he'd care to carry the discussion on to his own blog, eh, where others could weigh in on his opinions?

Oh, that's right, there's no place for that to occur. Silly me.

BZ

FairWitness said...

"FW...you said "honorable Democrat" so your whole premise is wrong, right?

The MSM and politicos (DEMS) keep referring to Corzine as an honorable man... so I used that. I don't think there's AHYTHING honorable about him.

Anonymous said...

"I know this demonstrates my ignorance of big-time finance, but I'm having a really tough time finding much difference between Jon Corzine, Democrat; and Bernie Madoff, crook."


Or Blago....or Frank...or Pelosi...or Dodd...or Kerry...or Lautenberg...or Waters....or Ragel...or Clinton...or Fannie's CEO....or Feinstein...or Boxer...or ...and it goes on and on with the filth that passes for..."government".

Double dipping, devious, dishonorable scum that garner an 8% approval rating from the illegals, the grifters, the scammers and of course government lifer, employees.

Meanwhile....the corruption, the thievery continues unabated with little chance that real justice will ever be carried out.

This is what has destroyed empires in the past...greed, corruption, envy and sloth.

This is what the liberals ignore...and are secretly proud of. They pretend...they lie, they steal and care nothing for integrity or fear the justice system.

Anonymous said...

You see...the den of thieves still regard one another as "honorable". Their ability to overlook the crooks and dishonest among them is limited only by the amount of cash the subject has raised...can raise or can still hand them under the table.

"Corzine's financial largesse is likely to at least be in the back of many people's minds during these hearings," said Michael Beckel, a spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics.

A spokesman for Corzine was not immediately available for comment.

At Thursday's hearing, lawmakers thanked Corzine - whose name placard read "Honorable"



Imagine that..."Honorable"..POS. Crook and a well know scum bag to the fools of New Jersey...who elected him because they know he's a real Sicilian.


"Corzine has been a major fundraiser for President Barack Obama, having donated the maximum of $5,000 that an individual can give for a presidential campaign, according to campaign finance records.

He also held a lavish $35,800-a-head fundraising dinner for Obama at his home in April and raised or "bundled" donations of at least $500,000 so far for Obama's 2012 re-election effort."



Therefore...like every crook...like Holder...this turd will never see jail time. The most "transparent" administration of lechers, terrorists, and commies...will see to it that they cover their ...comrade.

How is this rat...any different than the thief Maddox.

Fredd said...

Silver:

Backing up Ducky?

Lost some points with Fredd, there Silver.

Ducky just looks to muddy the waters, and cover for his Marxist, Socialist Communist buddies (like Corzine).

Bob said...

No, Z, I don't see any reason, right now, to send Corzine to prison. Somehow, somebody has to prove something. How many crooks went to jail in the Savings and Loan debacle thirty years ago (am I right about the period?). How many people have gone to jail because of the housing market frauds? Yeah, Maddow got caught, but so far nobody has squealed on Corzine.

I will stand firm in the statement that in all probability, there is no jail time for Corzine. After all, he can afford the best lawyers, all of whom attend the same cocktail parties as most of the members of Congress.

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

"Judge me by the people with whom I surround myself." - Barack Obama, 2008

Z said...

beamish, nobody judges Obama and gets away with it.
He's perfect, dontchaknow

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

I'm thinking he'll call a mulligan on that quote. LOL

Z said...

beamish, Obama'd never do that...he probably still thinks the jerks he surrounds himself are perfect!

:-)

Kid said...

Why would anyone have put 10 cents with corzine? That's what is surprising to me about this. Crooked senator, crooked governor of NJ and now got his paws on 1.2 billion? I'd have ran so fast, you wouldn't have even seen my wingsuit.

I saw one guy commenting on Minyanville's buzz that he had big money with MFGlobal. Wall Street professionals and other 'smart people' comment on the Buzz..

Which as an aside - Even Cramer rags on the democrats and obama, seemingly in every episode of his mad money show, but sure as hell he will vote democrat again. I think there's some kind of mental disorder among New Yoikers, especially those with money.

Z said...

Kid, so many of my Conservative friends have liberal friends who can't abide with Obama anymore...at ALL. My friends get excited about their friends' conversions and I remind them that a liberal might not like the lib president but he'll NEVER vote Republican! Not with this media misinforming, and not with the indoctrination most college grads have rec'd.
Cracks me up "you don't REALLY think he'll now vote REPUBLICAN, do you?"

HEREIN is the rub; herein is the left reaping its rewards for the constant drip drip drip over the years we were playing it fairly as conservative teachers teaching HOW to learn, not WHAT indoctrination to learn, and not realizing the Left was not.

If more liberals knew and appreciated our history, they'd be ashamed of themselves for having indoctrinated, for having considered ( and pushed) socialism, political correctness, Big Brother, etc... Their inability to be ashamed does show either ignorance or a sad sign of mental illness.

Kid said...

I would say proof of their mental illness is their ability to hold diametrically opposed beliefs in their head at the same time. I'd have said 'mind' but...