Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktVital Statistics:
| Last | Change | Percent | |
| S&P Futures | 1250.6 | -5.1 | -0.41% |
| Eurostoxx Index | 2336.5 | -11.440 | -0.49% |
| Oil (WTI) | 94.22 | 0.150 | 0.16% |
| US Dollar Index (DXY) | 76.824 | 0.094 | 0.12% |
| 10 Year Govt Bond Yield | 2.08% | 0.01% |
Stock Index futures dropped dramatically after the IMF and G20 failed to come to a deal over IMF resources. EURIBOR / OIS (a measure of stress in the European banking system) hit a post-crisis high yesterday, although some of that may have been due to MF Global. LIBOR / OIS (a measure of stress in the US banking system) has been steadily rising since August.
Lots of economic numbers released this morning. The unemployment rate came in at 9.0% vs expectations of 9.1%. October payroll numbers were a touch light, but September numbers were revised higher. Average Hourly earnings and hours in line with expectations. Markets are rallying slightly on the news, as investors focus on the revisions and bet that the disappointing Oct payroll numbers will end up being revised upward in the future.
The MF Global saga is interesting on a number of fronts. At the moment, it appears that $633 million of customer money is missing. Co-mingling customer and firm accounts is a big, basic no-no. In addition, it looks like they moved customer funds around in order to fool the auditors. CEO Jon Corzine has resigned this morning and chosen to forego his severance package. If the Occupy Wall Street really wants a perp walk, here is a golden opportunity. It will be interesting to see if the Obama Administration decides to go after Corzine, a well-respected Democrat. So far, they have exhibited zero interest in going after ex-Clinton Budget Director Franklin Raines who paid himself tens of millions or dollars in salary and bonus based on fraudulent accounting, so I am not optimistic. But hey, you never know.
Filed under: Uncategorized |
All Things in Moderation 
Uh-oh. This new job report is going to get ScottC in trouble again. The non-farm private sector added 114,000 jobs, but some of those gains were offset by losses in the public sector. Scott will take this as good news and as a result is a hateful, angry man.
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ashot:I saw that when the numbers came out at 8:30, but figured I'd let it pass. But now that you mention it…. 😉
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Do you know if the FBI investigated Raines?I believe they will investigate Corzine.It is critical in these cases for the criminal investigation to be done by folks who know how to investigate a white collar crime. The case that goes to a grand jury must show the misallocation or theft, and it must show the figurative fingerprints of the accused. A civil case could be assembled on much less evidence, and would not require FBI resources. I think that, often, white collar crimes settle as civil matters with large fines because of relative ease of the civil burden of proof. As an example of what happens when incompetent prosecutors handle a white collar case, the Stevens conviction was bogus and had to be thrown out and the lead attorney in charge committed suicide.There, we suffered b/c the GWB Justice Dept. rewarded a bunch of kids from a fourth rate law school with jobs in the division and their inept scutwork sabotaged the case. Considering that they suppressed Brady evidence, they must not have had a conviction case to begin with, IMO.I busted a Ponzi scheme in Austin in 1989 in civil litigation, but my work was just the jumping off point for the state securities division in its criminal complaint. A year later, they obtained the indictment and conviction of the perpetrator by a Travis County jury, and he skipped pending appeal. Years later, he was convicted of running the same scheme in Australia, under a new and phony ID.A forensic accountant has uncovered evidence of $500K stolen over 5 years by my construction client's bookkeeper/office manager. We turned over 700 pages of analysis ot the D.A. They now must silently subpoena her bank records and her credit card records, then follow up every single credit card purchase she made so that she cannot say "I bought X for the company". When the D.A. has $200K + nailed, he will indict. She will be indicted, if she doesn't die first, in 10 -14 mos, average, and she is free until then. That's right, she might skip.I could have filed a civil suit on the forensics and been to trial before then, but a civil suit against this woman would not collect enough to make it worthwhile as civil litigation. QB may have more to add, but what seems so simple to the public is not always so simple in practice.
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Scott will take this as good news and as a result is a hateful, angry man.He's mellowed remarkably since he started posting here on ATiM, though. 🙂
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Totally off topic, but does anyone know why the Greek vote of no confidence is set for midnight Athens time?
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It sounds to me like they're counting votes and trying to talk Party members out of defecting, as much as I can tell anything from this story, MsJS. But that's speculation on my part.
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There's a story circulating that the missing client funds from MF have been discovered in a custodial account at JPM. I'm not sure exactly what that means…how they got there, why they were put there, how MF didn't know they were there…or whether or not it indicates some kind of stealth transferring of money. But if the story is correct, at least it seems that the clients will not have lost their money.
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Mich:He's mellowed remarkably since he started posting here on ATiM, though.Not sure about that, but it is certainly less stressful without the constant personal attacks upon me.
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Scott- For what it's worth I thought about replying to Apoc's nonesense that referenced your glee at public employees losing their job, but didn't want to be subject to a death threat. I think I defended you the first time he made that claim, but I can't recall. Anyway, I haven't been paying as much attention to the job reports over the last few weeks so is the shift from public to private sectors been a continuing trend?
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Which story deserves more attention, Corzine and Crony Capitalism? Or Herman Cain and unnamed sources alleging vague charges?Question 2, why isn't it getting the attention the other is?
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Troll- It depends on what you mean by deserve? The Herman Cain story probably gets better ratings, but obviously Corzine and Crony Capitalism is more newsworthy in the sense that you and I used that word. It's a good point and I bet if Corzine received more coverage OWS protestors would be saying smarter things and less easy to ridicule.
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Sounds like Corzine was able to hold off on new rules coming from the CFTC.http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/as-regulators-pressed-changes-corzine-pushed-back-and-won/?scp=2&sq=corzine&st=cse
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Is the Corzine story about crony capitalism or something else? I've read there's no love lost between Obama and Corzine and of course an investigation will ensue either way. I hope it's strenuous. A lot of people on the left are talking about it so I don't think it's getting slighted too much in the news department. Re the Cain story, just not that interested to be honest. I think it's interesting slightly that they seemed to blame Perry for the leak but otherwise, another day another dollar. ♪♫♪It's a Man's World♪♫♫♪ ☺
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JPM is claiming the MF money is not the "missing money"
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McWing:Anyway, I haven't been paying as much attention to the job reports over the last few weeks so is the shift from public to private sectors been a continuing trend?Yes, it has been trending that way for several months now.
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"GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has reached an agreement in principal to pay the United States $3 billion to resolve what it characterized as the company's "most significant ongoing Federal government investigations" into possible improper activities, GSK said November 3."Only like 1,000 more settlements like this and our budget will be in good shape.
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TMW, for the media, the Cain story is like driving by a car wreck. They cannot help but look. It might involve [hush!] S-E-X.If you read my earlier post, the Corzine matter will likely resurface after an investigation, but it will surely go silent, for awhile, everywhere accept FT, The Economist, Barron's, the WSJ, Bloomberg, and other financial reports.http://www.economist.com/node/21536615Notice the missing customer funds are not yet in yesterday's article. So yes, I think we will get much more in publications like this one, to which I subscribe.Cain's stuff would already be dying if he had shut up about it rather than kept talking and talking, of course. A natural salesman, I suspect he is loquacious by nature. We will have Biden moments with Cain.
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