Corzine Live! Follow Along With House Testimony
So far, the former New Jersey Democratic senator and governor has tried to blame the ethnics in the back office for assuring him that it was legal to use customer account funds, which are and were widely known to be sequestered under both law and industry practice, to cover MF Global's ungoing losses.
Corzine is facing multiple lawsuits and a possible criminal investigation for events over the course of a week or so in late October, during which some party or parties at the respected institution disappeared more than a billion dollars from customer accounts.
Watch it live. Comment at will.
3:37 update: Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-Tennessee) gets a good admission: Corzine has not at any time participated in the effort to find the stolen funds.
3:43 update: If you're a business history buff, there's a pretty good Nick Leesonish angle here in which a scuzzbucket brings down a hallowed institution. MF Global traces back to England in the 1780s and for almost two centuries supplied a third of the British Royal Navy's demand for rum, sodomy and the lash [pdf]. Since being spun off from Man Group Plc. in 2007, MF Global has been a major player in derivatives, a market that has long roots (as Fincher noted) in American agricultural history.
3:53 update: "You libertarians are in favor of securities fraud by politically connected politicians" comment is in the house! Drink!
4:28: update: Pretty slow going, but it's great the the Corz was given a bonus for enhancing the company's "regulatory profile."
4:30: "Somebody forgot to turn off the computer."
4:33: Corzine's done. Other MF people going now. (Potentially interesting. Other witnesses have contradicted Corzine's testimony before.)
