>It's kinda like me filching your car every night at 3:00 AM and returning it at 5:00.<

Or maybe it's like the retail clerk or bank teller "borrowing" a sawbuck or two in the morning, because they'll replace it before drawer reconciliation? That's always OK with some people, right?

So what does it matter that MFGlobal never replaced it before the countdown, because there's no reconciliation for these guys anyway.

The evidence keeps piling up that the only rational course for us little guys is to decouple as completely as possible from the system. If my retirement was not locked into the system via the 403b rules I'd only have a checking account with my local bank.

The lottery advertises "you can't win if you don't play", with the financial system its "we can't rob you if you don't play".

Flap

As I've written before:

The government is criminals

Playing the banks in the derivatives game is like playing blackjack where the dealer always has all the aces on the bottom of the deck. When they lose, the winning players are accused of counting cards and expelled from the game.

The sad thing about MF Global is what they did probably was legal. It shouldn't have been if it was. Where I would say it wasn't legal was the maneuver wasn't meant for a mark to maturity trade in risky assets, but instead overnight loans. Corzine was engaged in a risky play in capital assets of an insolvent. Hypothecation was meant for something more like an overnight in fed funds or t-bills, a cash equivalent. There is no way sovereign bonds of any duration over a few days is a cash equivalent.

The other sad thing is what happened has been covered up by the government. It is clear JPM kept the money rather than allow it to be tied up in bankruptcy where it probably would have been awarded to the account holders. We have a string of corruption. There was the huge, way out of the money trade on Bear Stearns puts with a very short fuse that theoretically made well over $100 million. They said they couldn't track the trade. I bet if one of us made a transaction 1% that size, we would be wearing stripes. They would have tracked it in less than 1 minute. Here they can't find over $1 billion? The ****ers can figure out who they gave an extra $50 to at the teller window, as my brother got an extra $50 once, told me and I told him he would hear from the bank. He did. These guys are robbing banks, robbing accounts and when found on film, the authorities are coming to the conclusion it was obviously someone else diguised as them and there is no telling who it was.

If I was running against Obama, I would hammer Corzine and the lack of prosecution up his ass. I have heard Corzine is out raising funds for Obama. We are talking politboro/banana boat dictatorship type stuff here. There is no rule of law, yet we have more people in prison, most for political crimes, than any other country in the world, while the real crooks run the country.

Uppity - not to pick nits, but government enabled criminal behavior by wealthy banksters. In some cases, yes, I suspect government officials looked the other way (or worse) to polish their own stars and to keep that revolving door well greased. Such self-serving actions or inactions may be crimes, but they pale by comparison to the crimes of the banksters, More often, I suspect, regulators looked the other way due to the unwritten regulatory agency policy of not rocking the boat, particularly when things were going well (2002-2007). Now, as regards politicians; I suspect that more than a few of them acted on behalf of their benefactors, not the public interest and they should, at a minimum, lose their jobs. I simply want to keep the focus on the real criminals here - the banksters. From the guy who lied on his loan application, to the pie-in-the-sky appraiser, there was tons and tons of fraud - but we will never stop this by going after them. Only when the big dogs go to pound-in-the-ass prison is this likely to stop. I think that's the point Janet is making. Of course, before a single one of these vulcans can go to jail, we would need to have a president who recognizes that CRIMES WERE COMMITTED. Apparently, that criteria would substantially narrow the field.

Steelhead, they looked the other way between 2005 and 2009. Since then, the ones that looked the other way have been replaced by the deaf and blind and the deaf have no sign language or brail and the blind no seeing eye dog and must communicate what they know to the deaf.

CONgress is responsible to hold their feet to the fire, but it is Obama's Justice Department, FBI, and bank regulators who work for the Executive Branch who have refused to investigate and bring the pigmen to the criminal bar. Just like under Bush too.

That's why with none of the candidates for president making financial fraud an issue, except for Mr. Still, we can expect more of the same. Neocons nitwits like Bernanke and Geithner ruling the world.

Flappingeagle "we can't rob you if you don't play"

Not unheard of to have a MERS claim placed on a property with no mortgage at all.

Wherever the judiciary and/or the prosecuting executive are criminal you are in the game.