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- Superior Biotechnology Leads to Superior Drugs
- The Delusion of Regulating Risk
- Talk of a Greek Exit Gets Louder
- Doug Casey on Taxes and Freedom, Part II
- Is Facebook the Rusty Hinge of the Stock Market?
- Fitch Downgrades Japan
- Doug Casey on Taxes and Freedom
- Greeks Run on Banks as Euro-Confidence Wanes
- To the Class of 2012
The “Corzine-Dimon Syndrome”
On its best days, the American judicial process is a blindfolded Lady Justice — prosecuting the truly guilty and exonerating the truly innocent. On its worst days, it is a Water Wiggle — whirling around unpredictably, without any apparent connection to guilt, innocence, Constitutionality or the proportionality of alleged crimes to one another.
On good days, guilty parties go to prison; innocent parties do not. On very good days, innocent parties do not even have to go to the trouble of hiring a lawyer and showing up in court. Law enforcement agencies correctly decide to spare them the burden (and potential agony) of proving their innocence before a judge or jury.
On bad days, the exact opposite occurs. Innocent parties go to prison, while guilty parties do not. On very bad days, guilty parties do not even have to go to the trouble of hiring a lawyer and showing up in court. Law enforcement agencies incorrectly decide to withhold charges and spare guilty parties the burden (and potential agony) of defending their guilt before a judge or jury.
Once you string enough bad days together, you get a Water Wiggle — a “system” of law enforcement that investigates and prosecutes alleged crimes capriciously, unfairly and disproportionately. You get a system, for example, that:
1) Prosecutes Hall of Fame pitcher, Roger Clemens, for injecting performance-enhancing drugs into his own body, but does not prosecute a single investment banking executive for fraudulently injecting mortgage-backed securities into the US financial system.
2) Tasers-to-death a Mexican national for sneaking into the US to find work, but provides billion-dollar bailouts to finance company executives whose extreme incompetence causes thousands of individuals to lose their jobs. (Bring us your tired, huddled masses so that we can beat them to death).
3) Threatens to shut down porn film studios for failure to comply with “condom laws,” but turns a blind eye to Wall Street’s serial financial rape of the US taxpayer.
4) Fires a 5-year employee of Wells Fargo for shoplifting when she was a teenager, but does not bother to prosecute M.F. Global’s former CEO, Jon Corzine, for allowing (or causing) $1.6 billion of client funds to disappear from the firm he controlled.
In other words, once you string enough bad days together, you get a “system” that punishes minor crimes and rewards major crimes…consistently. You get a system that punishes entrepreneurial initiative by rewarding cronyism.
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Caught Between MF Global And The Tax Man
There is still significant money missing from MF Global customers’ futures accounts. The bankruptcy trustee sent MF Global customers 2011 Form 1099-Bs showing their realized and unrealized trading gains and losses from Section 1256 contracts. (Note: The cost-basis reporting crisis does not extend to futures. Taxpayers and tax preparers can rely on Form 1099-Bs for futures, whereas they cannot for securities 1099-Bs.)
MF Global’s bankruptcy trustee James W. Giddens added this note to the Form 1099-Bs: “Although you may not have recovered the entire value of your MFGI account in the SIPA Proceeding (bankruptcy process), your Form 1099 reflects all transactions credited to your MFGI account during 2011. You should consult your tax advisor to determine whether you may claim a deduction or loss for income tax purposes as a result of your not having recovered the full amount of your account.”
Giddens doesn’t say which year the loss may be taken. It’s the consensus of our CPAs and tax attorneys — and the consensus of others we have seen on the Internet — that a MF Global deposit loss recognition event most likely occurs after 2011.
Tax law for writing off deposit losses
The loss is not determined and the trustee still hopes to recover the entire amount (or much more) of missing customer monies. Certainly, they should, as these monies were taken inappropriately and as I pointed out in my Dec. 9 Forbes blog “How To Pay Back MF Global Customers 100%,” why can’t those last-minute transactions to pay counterparties with customer funds be reversed, and the monies recovered? I still believe that not doing this recovery is illegal and wrong. But, this has no effect on my discusson of tax posture.
Tax law for deposit impairment, casualty or theft loss or capital losses all require a known loss and a realization event of that loss. Missing MF Global monies are being recovered slowly and some hold out hope for full or significant recovery. Although the bankruptcy and liquidation happened Oct. 31, 2011 and some courts ruled in early December 2011 on certain matters, the missing money file remains open and that is telling for tax purposes.
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Media Runs Defense For Corzine After MF Global Revelation
Email: Corzine directly ordered transfer of stolen customer funds
The media has predictably leapt to former MF Global head John Corzine’s defense following the revelation that $200 million dollars in customer funds was stolen, “per JC’s direct instructions,” by regurgitating the talking point that Corzine was unaware of the fact that the money was taken from clients.
A memo released by the House Financial Services subcommittee contradicts Corzine’s claim, made under oath before Congress, in which the former New Jersey governor claimed, “I did not instruct anyone to lend customer funds to anyone.”
$200 million dollars in customer funds, part of a $1.6 billion in client money that disappeared, was sent to MF Global’s account with JP Morgan by direct order of Corzine, the email reveals.
“The memo released Friday details an email by Edith O’Brien, an assistant treasurer at MF Global, saying the transfer last October 28 “per JC’s direct instructions” would cover an overdraft in the London account of JPMorgan Chase. “JC” stood for Corzine,” reports Politico.
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Corzine Corzined – Congressional Panel Finds Former MF Global CEO Ordered JPM Fund Transfer
MF’s Corzine Ordered Funds Moved to JP Morgan, Memo Says
Jon S. Corzine, MF Global Holding Ltd. (MFGLQ)’s chief executive officer, gave “direct instructions” to transfer $200 million from a customer fund account to meet an overdraft in a brokerage account with JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), according to a memo written by congressional investigators.
Edith O’Brien, a treasurer for the firm, said in an e-mail quoted in the memo that the transfer was “Per JC’s direct instructions,” according to a copy of the memo obtained by Bloomberg News. The e-mail, dated Oct. 28, was sent three days before the company collapsed, the memo says. The memo does not indicate whether that phrase was the full text of the e-mail or an excerpt.
O’Brien’s internal e-mail was sent as the New York-based broker found intraday credit lines limited by JPMorgan, the firm’s clearing bank as well as one of its custodian banks for segregated customer funds, according to the memo, which was prepared for a March 28 House Financial Services subcommittee hearing on the firm’s collapse. O’Brien is scheduled to testify at the hearing after being subpoenaed this week.
“Over the course of that week, MF Global’s financial position deteriorated, but the firm represented to its regulators and self-regulatory organizations that its customers’ segregated funds were safe,” said the memo, written by Financial Services Committee staff and sent to lawmakers.
Steven Goldberg, a spokesman for Corzine, said in a statement that Corzine “never gave any instruction to misuse customer funds and never intended anyone at MF Global to misuse customer funds.”
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Edith O’Brien, MF Global Executive, Subpoenaed By Congress
WASHINGTON — A congressional panel has voted to subpoena an MF Global executive to testify about what took place at the brokerage firm before it collapsed last fall.
The House Financial Services oversight subcommittee voted Wednesday to subpoena Edith O’Brien, who was an assistant treasurer at the firm. O’Brien declined to appear voluntarily at a hearing scheduled for next week. She worked in the office charged with ensuring customer accounts were properly handled, the subcommittee says.
MF Global filed for bankruptcy protection Oct. 31. About $1.6 billion of customers’ money hasn’t been recovered.
Former Sen. Jon Corzine led the firm until last fall. He testified before three congressional panels in December.
Also scheduled to testify at the hearing are MF Global Chief Financial Officer Henri Steenkamp, General Counsel Laurie Ferber, and Christine Serwinski, chief financial officer for North America.
According to CME Group, the financial exchange operator that oversaw MF Global, O’Brien and Serwinski told an auditor that about $700 million was transferred from customer accounts to the firm’s brokerage operations to meet cash needs.
O’Brien couldn’t be reached for comment. A spokeswoman for MF Global didn’t return calls seeking comment.
Steenkamp testified in December that he didn’t authorize, approve… Continue reading
Gangster Banks Keep Winning Public Business. Why?
A friend of mine sent this article from Bloomberg, along with the simple comment: “Perfect.” What’s perfect? That the banks that have been caught repeatedly ripping off communities and munipalities — banks that have paid hefty settlements for rigging bids, bribery and other sordid misdeeds — keep winning the most public business. Apparently, our public officials aren’t concerned about whom they hire to serve as the people’s investment bankers.
From the piece, entitled “JPMorgan Claims No. 1 for Government Debt After Jefferson County”:
JPMorgan, which emerged from the worst financial crisis since the 1930s as the most profitable U.S. bank, has parlayed crisis-era loans to cities and states and a willingness to outbid other firms in local government bond auctions into becoming the top underwriter of municipal debt last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It was the first time the firm held that rank.
The turnaround was a milestone for JPMorgan’s municipal- bond department, which has been marred by its involvement in two of the biggest scandals in the history of U.S. public finance: a so-called pay-to-play scheme in Jefferson County, Alabama, that contributed to the biggest-ever U.S. municipal bankruptcy, and a federal probe that… Continue reading
