- Nicer Guy 2: Corzine's Thousand Points Of Darkness

You non-finance guys are probably going to find this pretty dull, but man oh man what a blood-letting Jon Corzine has caused! It’s a thousand points of darkness – little tiny flickers of the financial sector which have all now been snuffed out by regulators and creditors. It hasn’t hit the major papers yet (imagine my surprise) but while Jon Corzine may have been politically savvy enough to get to the top of Goldman Sachs, when he got into a firm small enough that politics was no longer a path to the top, he turned out to be an imbecile at actually running the company.

Zerohedge is really the best place to learn about what happened. There is this story, and this one, and this one, and if this one is true, then we may get to see one more former NJ governor do a perp walk. We really should have seen that coming. I wonder if he did it all because he’s a ‘gay American’?

I didn’t tell many people this, but I was approached about going to work for MF Global last June. I told the person who approached me that I wanted a 3 year guarantee and a hefty pay or play minimum comp that would protect me against the day that an infantile liberal like Corzine discovered my politics and wanted to purge me from his sight. I didn’t really want to go to work there, so I figured I’d only do it if the deal were great. (I didn't tell anyone because I didn't want to look too stupid to my friends if I ended up unemployed for an extended period.) Now it looks like other issues got in the way and distracted them from either agreeing to my lofty demands, or telling me to go ‘touch myself in an impure manner’.

MF Global started out as the back office of London hedge fund giant Man Financial group. My Ex-Caxton buddies already know this, but this is what happens when you let the back office run the whole firm. Risk management is a skill that you can’t learn in school and takes decades for even the smartest of us to absorb. It’s a shame that this is the way that people need to figure this out, but it’s not as easy as it looks.




UPDATE:

Squawk Box is NOT ignoring the story - which means that the dam has burst and the odds of a perp walk are growing by the minute. MF Global owes CNBC for 845K in advertising - the ultimate major media sin. All the special deals that Corzine got all across the industry (and why wouldn't he - the former Democrat governor of a deep blue state) will now probably be reexamined, and there will be political fallout. One more 'Solyndra' style deal for the Democrats running for office to explain away.

All those remaining Democrats (who universally believe they are exempt from the rules that limit the rest of us) will probably be angry for the way he ruined the cushy post political life for the rest of them, so no one will be on his side. It's always that way with a sinking ship - the rats are first off.