Quote Of The Day: James Koutoulas On MF Global

HT Jesse.

James Koutoulas is CEO of Typhon Capital Management and recently founded the Commodity Customer Coalition (CCC), comprised of over 7000 customers of MF Global. As an attorney and spokesperson for the CCC, Koutoulas has an inside persective on the legal maelstrom that has erupted in the wake of the MF Global bankruptcy scandal -- he's leading the charge for the commodities trading community.

I want to show the American people that no matter how connected you are, no matter if you were the Governor of New Jersey, no matter if you were a senator, if you break the law you should go to jail. And quite frankly, I think it's a disgrace that no one went to jail over the crisis in 2008.

All the people who gave triple-A credit ratings to essentially junk securities, none of them went to jail, none of the people who sold those went to jail, none of the people who committed mortgage fraud went to jail - I think it's ridiculous. If [Corzine] did commit a crime, I want to see him behind bars."

OS perhaps dwells on this too much--but--this crime strikes at the heart of the culture. If Corzine and company skate on this, then eventually nothing will prevent TheBankerDownTheStreet from stealing customer assets, except that he knows many of those customers know who he is, where he lives, and own guns. Even that may not be enough to overcome temptation, if he knows he'll never even face a court appearance for his crimes.

Nigel Farage: 'We Now Live In A German-Dominated Europe' (And That's Just The Polite Part Of His Speech!)

Farage lets fly, and the cameras record the smirks of the targets of his words. Their shamelessness and amusement say as much as he does about our situation. They as much as admit that Farage speaks the truth, but what does truth matter when one has accumulated that sort of power? It reminds OS of Nancy Pelosi's dismissiveness toward any who dared object to the Obama spending orgy of 2009, or the health care debacle of 2010. It reminds OS of George Bush's slimy deal with Teddy Kennedy to ram through a huge immigration bill in the dead of night just before Memorial Day 2007, voters be damned, all those people who voted for him, contributed to him, worked for him, endured abuse for him--screw 'em all.

Power trumps truth. Mammon reigns.



Cranmer adds his thoughts to this speech, which may be a watershed moment.

It was encouraging to hear other delegates cheer Farage on, in contrast to the calm smirks of the New Lords Of Europe.

'We Need A Christ'--Archbishop Fulton Sheen, 1958

OS spotted this posted on Ms. Barnhardt's page, a few posts before today.

Well worth reading:

It may very well be that the Communists, who are so anti-Christ, are closer to Him than those who see Him as a sentimentalist and vague moral reformer. The Communists have at least decided that if He wins, they lose; the others are afraid to consider Him either as winning or losing, because they are not prepared to meet the moral demands which this victory would make on their souls.

If He is what He claimed to be, a Savior, a Redeemer, then we have a virile Christ and a leader worth following in these terrible times; One Who will step into the breach of death, crushing sin, gloom and despair; a leader to Whom we can make totalitarian sacrifice without losing, but gaining freedom, and Whom we can love even unto death.

We need a Christ today Who will make cords and drive the buyers and sellers from our new temples; Who will blast the unfruitful fig-trees; Who will talk of crosses and sacrifices and Whose voice will be like the voice of the raging sea. But He will not allow us to pick and choose among His words, discarding the hard ones, and accepting the ones that please our fancy. We need a Christ Who will restore moral indignation, Who will make us hate evil with a passionate intensity, and love goodness to a point where we can drink death like water.


-Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen 
"Life of Christ", AD 1958

Ann Barnhardt, Cattle And Grain Futures Broker, Keeps Her Soul And Walks Away From Her Business

It's gotta hurt, after years spent building a successful business, based on integrity and and ethic of service.

In the wake of the MF Global scandal, Ms. Barnhardt concluded that she could not look her clients in the eye and suggest they invest their funds into a rigged market. The market has risks enough, run on a fair and competent basis. But if the dice are loaded, the cards marked, if the fix is in--then it is time to go home.

Today, Ms. Barnhardt sent this message to her clients (OS quotes in part--and urges his readers to read it all.)

Dear Clients, Industry Colleagues and Friends of Barnhardt Capital Management,

It is with regret and unflinching moral certainty that I announce that Barnhardt Capital Management has ceased operations. After six years of operating as an independent introducing brokerage, and eight years of employment as a broker before that, I found myself, this morning, for the first time since I was 20 years old, watching the futures and options markets open not as a participant, but as a mere spectator.

The reason for my decision to pull the plug was excruciatingly simple: I could no longer tell my clients that their monies and positions were safe in the futures and options markets – because they are not. And this goes not just for my clients, but for every futures and options account in the United States. The entire system has been utterly destroyed by the MF Global collapse. Given this sad reality, I could not in good conscience take one more step as a commodity broker, soliciting trades that I knew were unsafe or holding funds that I knew to be in jeopardy.

This isn't like shutting down a mom-and-pop retail store, when MomAndPop have decided they've had enough. People like Ms. Barnhardt love their line of work, know that only a handful of people are good at it, and know if conducted properly, customers benefit from her work. And, it's lucrative!

That is hard to walk away from, turn out the lights, close the door, close all positions and hand the money back to the clients. It's walking away from a life's work, a goal achieved, a dream come true. And, yet, she did, and informed her clients as to her reasoning.

Everything changed just a few short weeks ago. A firm, led by a crony of the Obama regime, stole all of the non-margined cash held by customers of his firm. Let’s not sugar-coat this or make this crime seem “complex” and “abstract” by drowning ourselves in six-dollar words and uber-technical jargon. Jon Corzine STOLE the customer cash at MF Global. Knowing Jon Corzine, and knowing the abject lawlessness and contempt for humanity of the Marxist Obama regime and its cronies, this is not really a surprise. What was a surprise was the reaction of the exchanges and regulators. Their reaction has been to take a bad situation and make it orders of magnitude worse. Specifically, they froze customers out of their accounts WHILE THE MARKETS CONTINUED TO TRADE, refusing to even allow them to liquidate. This is unfathomable. The risk exposure precedent that has been set is completely intolerable and has destroyed the entire industry paradigm. No informed person can continue to engage these markets, and no moral person can continue to broker or facilitate customer engagement in what is now a massive game of Russian Roulette.

The lady is unashamedly Christian, and decided to heed the words of the Master who admonished: What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and yet lose his soul?

Her entire blog page is fascinating to read...OS leaves it to his readers to explore.

OS understands, although does not compare himself to her. There was a time, though, when he had to walk away from a business he had always dreamed of building and owning, because it had turned evil. He knew it would fall of its own weight once he stepped away, and it did. It hurt--a lot. The memory is still tender to the touch.

But, upon turning away, the real adventure began.

Here's wishing Ms. Barnhardt well, and hoping her tribe increases.

Jon Corzine On Public Integrity: 'Hold Me Accountable'

Sometimes, life just just throws us a hanging curve ball. Jon Corzine, Obama's man on Wall Street, former governor of New Jersey, blows up a major commodities brokerage, and a whole-bunch-a-munney-hunney is missing from the customer accounts.

Let's listen in on Mr. Corzine's conference call...

Oooh, now where did that 700 million dollars go? I had it just here...silly me, after all that stress and strain screwing over serving New Jersey, I seem to have lost it.  Now, Barry, really; you're not going to get upset over mere 700 million in customers' funds are you? All you have to do is hand that sum over from the Treasury and all will be well. Besides your campaign could certainly use an infusion from those accounts in Costa Rica, right?

Then, let's contrast that with his inaugural speech in 2006...

Across this state, across our nation and around the world, New Jersey sets a high bar. We are proud that Supreme Court Justices, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Cabinet officers, Chief Executives, singers, rappers, writers, scientists, and entrepreneurs all hail from New Jersey. Our children graduate from our schools at higher rates than anywhere else in the nation, and our income and education levels are among the very best. In their own lives and in their own hopes for their children, our people do not settle for less than excellence.


Today -- I pledge to you that as your governor, I will never settle for less than excellence. 

****
(It gets better...)


Public integrity is not just about reputation or principles, as important as each of those is. What's at stake is social justice and fiscal responsibility. Every dollar squandered in violation of the public trust is a book not bought for a classroom, a prescription drug with a higher co-pay, meals-on-wheels not delivered, a road or science lab not built. With a multi-billion dollar structural deficit, mismanagement and misappropriation cannot and will not be tolerated.


To earn the public trust, we must act, but we also must trust the people with the truth. We cannot build a financial future on the crumbling, papered-over foundation of a recurring fiscal crisis. Too often, for too long, under both parties, fiscal gimmicks have been invented, recycled, and reapplied to mask fiscal realities. As Governor Codey said in November, thanks, his transition report can be summed up simply: "the state is pretty much broke." 

The games are over. New Jersey must put its fiscal house in order. The time of one-shot budget fixes is past. It's time to balance the books. 

(And, finally, he ended this classic speech by saying....drumroll please....)


And, in turn, I ask you -- the citizens of New Jersey, hold me accountable. 

Thank you. 

Is that the sound of a Gulfstream warming up on the tarmac?

OS has yet to hear of any judge demanding Mr. Corzine turn in his passport.

The Broker At The Local Diner And DanHan Both Come To The Same Conclusion

OS recently treated The Sainted Mrs. OS to Saturday brunch at the local diner on Main Street, and they passed part of their time in conversation with a local broker who has strong family ties in Europe.

OldSamTheBroker told us, 'Europe is headed for a dictatorship, it's inevitable.' There was no joy in his voice.

Daniel Hannan comes to the same conclusion in today's Telegraph.

No joy in his voice, either.

Merkel's campaign for a 'New Europe' echoes much the same propoganda employed in the 1930's and '40's. She's not a crazed messianic little guy with a mustache, to be certain, and there's no intent to equate her with him.

However,  the temptation to reassemble a Greater Europe seems to never lie far from the door. 

By the way, this can only end in tears, math being what it is.

Finally, A Judge Locates His Huevos, And Asks The Obvious Question

'If Citibank steals some 700 million dollars, why does it only have to pay 160 million back?'


Well, hot-damn, ya'll!  If that's the case, under the Citibank Rule, OS should give up his honest attempts at labor, and start sticking up local convenience stores, liquor stores, and jewelry shops! He gets to keep everything, except for 23%! Such a deal!! He doesn't even have to admit to any wrongdoing, and he always walks out to make it home by dark.

So, what's wrong with this logic?

(HT Mish)

OS at Midweek 9 November

Other and better minds than OS are covering the comic opera of Europe in breathless detail. In summation, though, the consensus is: They're screwed. We're screwed, maybe, as well.

It reminds of OS of those ensemble scenes in Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, where everyone simultaneously sings to the audience while the orchestra grinds away, each proclaiming his/her own side of the story; but not one of the characters will actually bother to tell one another the truth of who they are and what they're attempting to accomplish.

Chaos ensues, comic chaos in Mozart's opera, something less amusing in real life today.

It isn't like this obvious sort of unraveling wasn't something unexpected. After all, if government debt is 120% of GDP (Italy referenced here), and yields climb above 7%, well then, you're screwed. The students can riot in the streets, the unions can strike, the religious fanatics can preach, the politicians can speechify forever. The math is the math is the math--it is inexorable.

They're screwed.

Enough about that. We now get to witness the proverbial other shoe drop in our generation, and wonder what will arise to take hold of the situation. And how much of the bill we here on Main Street will foot for the great welfare state experiment of post-1945 Europe.

Closer to home, this has been one of those weeks, one in which OS notices that it has become increasingly laborious to get simple stuff of life done. The firms he has encountered this week, in different industries, all seem to suffer from 'too much work/too few employees' syndrome, or 'internal conflicts of interest' syndrome, or 'failure to think ahead' syndrome, or 'failure to think pragmatically' syndrome.

It's been frustrating. Yesterday afternoon, OS just had to take a break and go for a walk, to calm down. He called a couple of friends who helped restore perspective. It's good to have friends.

Today, he's back in harness, pulling his load into the stiff headwind of the culture of the United States.

No great insights to lend, no news to report, no scandals to incite. OS is simply tired.

One bright spot however, comes from BBC Radio 3 this week. The Choral Evensong from Ely Cathedral was glorious this morning. The broadcast repeats Sunday afternoon, and then in podcast for a week after that. 

Papandreou Resigns: Gulfstream Warming Up On The Tarmac

Having won a vote of confidence, he finally admits that things have spun out of control, and he's getting of Dodge while he can, before anyone notices the missing bullion stowed in his luggage.

A quick stop-off in Zurich to lighten the luggage, and thence to the manse in Scotland, away from prying eyes.

Remember, ya'll. ThePeopleInChargeOfSuchThings have been assuring us allllll along that they have the situation firmly in hand.

Nothing to see here, move along. Ball games to enjoy, Dancing With The Stars to follow.

What's All This Bother About A Geek Referendum?!! Geeks Don't Deserve A Referendum! They Don't Have Lives, And They Hoard All The Good Grades From The Rest Of Us!

Never mind...

Wish it were actually a funny situation.