- This man was CEO of Goldman Sachs before Hank Paulson "back-doored" him out. Corzine never forgot that in trying to return to his former glory.
- This man was on Obama's short list to be the new Treasury Secretary (despite furious denials).
- This man did not have the required current licenses to trade securities. They had expired while he
was a senator and governor of New Jersey. He was bounced from his governorship of NJ in favor of Chris Christie at the first opportunity NJ voters had to rectify their mistake. He was allowed by regulators to activate his security trading licenses without required examination. To take this a step
further, he acknowledged in his testimony that MF was hindered by old style phone transactions
versus competitor's high speed transactions (HFT). What better example of why an expired license
should not be re-granted through cronyism?
- As many representatives stated at the hearing, farmers and growers relying on commodity price
hedging were the primary victims of Corzine's CEO tenure. The only reason they established accounts with MF Global was to hedge future crops and prices. Protection and service to such
accounts and customers was MF Global's stated primary mission.
- Mr. Corzine altered the business model of MF Global from what he felt was a low growth business to a high return mindset. Of course, he acknowledged that company performance in a" high risk- high reward" scenario would increase the potential value of his stock options.
- Basically Mr. Corzine retroactively changed the company with which the farmers and growers were
doing business. I suspect they didn't realize that the focus changed to speculating in the foreign debt of every weak European stepchild other than Greece. Did he inform them in a manner which could be readily understood? Assuredly not.
- Instead, he fired the head risk officer and expanded accumulation of European sovereign risk instruments, He even acknowledged having to defend these bets to his own board of directors.
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More on this later. But any thinking person should realize that THIS is the type of person and
thought process that permeates firms like Goldman Sachs. That THIS is the type of Goldman Sachs
former CEOs that two times out of three had been appointed Treasury Secretary. This man's performance in front of the committee was absolutely pathetic. No wonder our economy and the performance of those who oversee it is similarly pathetic.
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