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And, yes, I DO take it personally

Friday, March 16, 2012

After Goldman, another whistleblower steps forth

this one from jpmorgan chase...
Comment for Public Information Collection 77 FR 8817

From: Z A N
Organization(s):
JPMorgan Chase

Comment No: 57019
Date: 3/14/2012

Comment Text:

Dear CFTC Staff,

Hello, I am a current JPMorgan Chase employee. This is an open letter to all commissioners and regulators. I am emailing you today b/c I know of insider information that will be damning at best for JPMorgan Chase. I have decided to play the role of whistleblower b/c I no longer have faith and belief that what we are doing for society is bringing value to people. I am now under the opinion that we are actually putting hard working Americans unaware of what lays ahead at extreme market risk. This risk is unnecessary and will lead to wide-scale market collapse if not handled properly. With the release of Mr. Smith’s open letter to Goldman, I too would like to set the record straight for JPM as well. I have seen the disruptive behavior of superiors and no longer can say that I look up to employees at the ED/MD level here at JPM. Their smug exuberance and arrogance permeates the air just as pungently as rotting vegetables. They all know too well of the backdoor crony connections they share intimately with elected officials and with other institutions. It is apparent in everything they do, from the meager attempts to manipulate LIBOR, therefore controlling how almost all derivatives are priced to the inherit and fraudulent commodities manipulation. They too may have one day stood for something in the past in the client-employee relationship. Does anyone in today’s market really care about the protection of their client? From the ruthless and scandalous treatment of MF Global client asset funds to the excessive bonuses paid by companies with burgeoning liabilities. Yes, we at JPMorgan that are in the know are fearful of a cascading credit event being triggered in Greece as they have hidden derivatives in excess of $1 Trillion USD. We at JPMorgan own enough of these through counterparty risk and outright prop trading that our entire IB EDG space could be annihilated within a few short days.

[...]

It is rather surprising that what should be well known liabilities on our balance sheet have not erupted into wider scale scrutinization. I call all honest and courageous JPMorgan employees to step up and fight the cronyism and wide-scale manipulation by reporting the truth. We are only helping reality come to light therefore allowing a real valuation of our banking industry which will give investors a chance to properly adjust without being totally wiped out. I will be contacting a lawyer shortly about this matter, as I believe no other whistleblower at JPMorgan has come forward yet. Our deepest secrets lie within the hands of honest employees and can be revealed through honest regulators that are willing to take a look inside one of America's best kept secrets. Please do not allow this to turn into another Enron.

keep 'em coming...

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Tuesday, February 28, 2012

The MF Global theft

from the nyt...
Federal investigators examining the final days at MF Global and how customer money went missing are poring over scores of wire transfers in and out of the brokerage firm, including the possible movement of $325 million that may have belonged to customers, according to people briefed on the matter.

The suspicious transfer, which until now has not been made public, was first discovered in the early hours of Oct. 31, the day the firm filed for bankruptcy. Initially, the firm attributed a shortfall of more than $1 billion in customer money to an “accounting error,” records show. But after hours of searching, executives acknowledged to regulators in the firm’s offices in Chicago that the shortfall was real — and may have been caused in part by the $325 million transfer, said one of the people briefed on the matter.

It remains unclear where that money went, or even if it belonged to customers. But it is one of many significant wire transfers that federal authorities — including the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Federal Bureau of Investigation — have spent months reviewing to piece together MF Global’s final days.

pushing aside the patent b.s. lack of "clarity" about where the money went, atrios chooses to call it what it really is...
When a billion bucks or so goes "missing" it isn't due to complexity, or accounting errors, or those crazy moments right before the firm went bankrupt. It's theft. The money was stolen from customers and then given to somebody else. Precisely why, by who, and to whom are questions that should be answered, but the underlying issue shouldn't be obscured. People were robbed. [emphases added]

seems to be a lot of thievery goin' around these days...

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Monday, January 30, 2012

America is a nine-hundred pound man imprisoned in a fetid trailer bedroom begging for one more case of Little Debbie Cocoa Cremes

post headline from a james howard kunstler piece on obama's sotu entitled "Jive Talkin"...
America is a nine-hundred pound man imprisoned in a fetid trailer bedroom begging for one more case of Little Debbie Cocoa Cremes before the front-end-loader bashes through the wall to haul him to intensive care. America just wants to hear another story about its own wonderfulness before that happens. America's soul is so lost that it has disappeared into the same cosmic wilderness that MF Global's client accounts were last seen entering.

[...]

I've had enough of Obama, though I voted for him in 2008. I won't vote for him again. But I'm not altogether confident that any of us will be voting for anyone in the fall of 2012. Too many systems we depend on are spinning out of control. I suppose we will continue feeding ourselves a diet of lies and evasions until circumstances become so extreme that language itself loses all relevance and only real action will answer. I believe that moment is approaching in the yet-to-be-acted-out political uproars of the spring and summer. In the meantime, American leadership is bankrupt. Just accept the fact that America has no legitimate leadership. The vacuum is total and we know how nature feels about a vacuum.

occasionally, kunstler is a fun read but i can't imagine being cooped up in the same room with him for very long without one or the other of us starting to foam at the mouth...

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Tuesday, December 06, 2011

Dean Baker, "If you want to talk to someone from Goldman Sachs, call the Treasury"

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Tuesday, November 22, 2011

WOO-HOO...!! MF Global missing money now up to $1.7 BILLION...!!

holy shit...!
$1.7 Billion Customers' Money Missing From MF Global

The amounts of customer funds missing from MF Global have multiplied from $633 million to $1.2 billion yesterday– and now $1.7 billion today, according to Vincent (Trace) Schmeltz III , the attorney for the 80 member Commodity Customers Coalition. Schmeltz is a member of the Barnes & Thornburg law firm in Chicago

This new figure is the result of the inability by the Trustee and the CME (the Chicago Mercantile Exchange) to find more than $3.7 billion in customers funds rather than the $5.4 billion projected just after MF Global filed for bankruptcy on October 31.

Apparently, on October 31, the CME reported segregated funds totalled $5.4 billion. The next day– on November 1st, the CME suggested that $633 million was lost and unaccounted for. But, by yesterday, November 21, the Trustee reported that he could find only $3.7 billion in assets. Neither Schmeltz nor Koutoulas can understand why the CME declared only $1.2 billion missing yesterday– because if only $3.7 billion has been found of the original $5.4 billion segregated accounts– this suggests that the missing amount of segregated funds now totals $1.7 billion.

i'm getting the feeling that there's still another shoe to drop... maybe even an entire freakin' shoe STORE...

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Monday, November 21, 2011

MF Global is back in the news and about goddam time

mm-hmmmm...
MF Global Trustee Says Shortfall Could Exceed $1.2 Billion

back on november 3, i posted this, courtesy of zero hedge...
The theft by MF Global was not stealing hundreds of millions form its customers: it has stolen a whopping $1.5 billion

i just love that word "shortfall"... it sounds so much better than theft, doesn't it...?

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Thursday, November 03, 2011

The theft by MF Global was not stealing hundreds of millions form its customers: it has stolen a whopping $1.5 billion

wow...! why isn't this hitting the news hot and hard...?

tyler durden posting at zero hedge...

Even as we hear rumblings that the MF fire is spreading, and the associated auditor of the now infamous former Primary Dealer is about to get in serious hot water, the bankrupt company itself continues to dig itself an ever deeper grave. Because according to a just filed motion by the MF Global liquidating trustee, it seems that the gross criminal activity by the company may have been orders of magnitude bigger than anyone has expected. To wit: "As a result of the apparent segregation violations and the suspension of clearing privileges, more than 150,000 customer accounts essentially were frozen on October 31, 2011, of which more than 50,000 accounts were regulated commodities customer accounts. The CME estimates that MFGI’s current segregated funds requirement is approximately $5.45 billion. Moreover, the total amount of MFGI customer segregated funds on deposit at the CME is approximately $2.5 billion, and the clearing-level segregated collateral is approximately $1.5 billion or approximately 60 percent of the MFGI customer segregated funds on deposit at the CME." Doing some quick inverse addition and we get a (w)hole of $5.45 less $2.5 less $1.5 or $1.45 billion. In other words, the theft by MF Global was not stealing hundreds of millions form its customers: it has stolen a whopping $1.5 billion! For those confused, this is not a rogue loss of $1.5 billion, something which was enough to send UBS' Kweku to prison. This is outright theft resulting from illegally commingled accounts. Our only question is will $1.5 billion in theft be enough for the first real perp walk of an Obama-friendly Wall Street executive?

* drums fingers impatiently on desk *

when is the house of cards FINALLY going to fall...? when is enough enough...?

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