To Jon Corzine: This MF Global Client Wants Justice

Courtesy of Larry Doyle.

On the heels of my MF Global commentary a few days ago in which I ran the exchange I had with a farmer in central Michigan, I received a number of messages of gratitude for continuing to shine a light on this travesty.

The pain felt by the farmer is also experienced by a whole host of other MF Global clients. I received another communication just this morning from an MF Global customer who screams for justice and challenges the premise of the most recent MF Global coverage in the WSJ. With his permission, I welcome echoing his scream and running his letter sent to editors of The Wall Street Journal,

MF Global’s corporate accounting may have been a mess, but as a long-time MF Global customer I can assure you that the customer accounting system (GMI) never failed. Customers received daily account statements that were accurate to the penny, before, during and for a full week after the bankruptcy of the firm. Therefore, the amount of money belonging to customers was known to management at all times and by law was required to be held in segregated bank accounts at all times.

CFTC rules permit firms to add their own funds to those segregated accounts, but NEVER allow customer funds to be removed and added to corporate accounts for proprietary purposes.

Accounting chaos and management incompetence may explain the losses incurred by MF Global’s shareholders and bondholders, but they do not provide an excuse for the looting of customer accounts to meet margin calls on insanely reckless proprietary bond bets.

Your recent article indicates that Mr. Corzine and senior management knew that their accounting system was unreliable, yet they went ahead and leveraged the company 40:1 on a high-risk speculative trade. Isn’t that a perfect example of “willful blindness” and “criminal negligence”? Will indictments be forthcoming, or are Obama campaign bundlers held to a different standard?

Regards,

Stanley P. Haar

What we seem to see at play here in the MF Global situation is comparable to so much else that has transpired on Wall Street. That is? Effective immunity without real transparency is nothing more than a license to steal. Am I wrong? I welcome hearing from more MF Global customers and providing a voice to your calls for justice as well.

Playing to win here for all those in America who believe in real capitalism and free, fair, and open markets.

Navigate accordingly.

Larry Doyle