$1.2 billion; it sure is a lot to lose. Okay, I could see $20 maybe $50; you leave it in your pants pocket (only to find it with some glee a few days later) or you might go to Vegas for the weekend and lose some money, more than you wish to admit. But over a billion, missing? That’s no easy trick.
Well folks I’m here to tell you it’s not lost. It may be gone, but it was not lost. The money was taken from MF Global’s customer accounts (traders, farmers, individuals, brokers) and used by MF Global to support their mounting trading losses in European debt. I suspect it was a frenzy of activity, but someone stole the money. Perhaps not all at once, but a few hundred million there, a few hundred million here and you are at $1.2 billion.
So stop New York Times, Wall Street Journal and all other media outlets from saying it is “lost.” And start asking the right question: Who stole the money? Who authorized the siphoning of funds from customer accounts to cover the proprietary trading of MF Global? Was it SenaGovernor Corzine? My guess is that he would be too smart to have his fingerprints on any such decision.
Alternatively, if MF Global had the right to monies in its customers accounts, stand up and say so. It seems despicable, but if customers agreed to it, they agreed to it and let’s move on. But surely the money was not “lost.” It was taken and that’s a big difference.