MF Global

And in Cyprus when it happened, the authorities said it was a once-off, because of all of the hot Russian money that is in Cyprus, and this will not happen anywhere else...but meanwhile they are planning for that scenario in most of our countries. People need to be aware of that and they need to prepare.

6 Years After the Financial Crisis Hit, The Big Banks Are Still Committing Massive Crimes

A week ago we wrote: 'While it has been public for a long time that i) JPM is eager to sell its physical commodities business and ii) the most likely buyer was little known Swiss-based Mercuria, there was nothing definitive released by JPM. Until moments ago, when Jamie Dimon formally announced that JPM is officially parting ways with the physical commodities business. But while contrary to previous expectations, following the sale JPM will still provide commercial gold vaulting operations around the world, it almost certainly means farewell to Blythe Masters." Sure enough:

JP MORGAN COMMODITY CHIEF BLYTHE MASTERS LEAVING, WSJ SAYS       

Farewell Blythe: we hope your replacement will be just as skilled in keeping the price of physical gold affordable for those of us who keep BTFD every single day.

File this one in the "you can't make it up" category. Over two years after the MF Global collapse, in which the primary dealer headed by Jon "I don't recall" Corzine all but admitted it had engaged in the cardinal sin of any financial intermediary, i.e., commingling money, to cover up a trade gone horribly bad and which resulted in the disappearance of some $1 billion in client funds until such time as the bankruptcy process managed to "liberate" funds from other part of the company, MF Global has suddenly figured who is at fault: not the CEO, not his brown-nosing lackey, not some janitor meant to be scapegoated precisely in a situation such as this, not even the infamous "glitch" - no, the party that is accountable for the firm's theft of client funds, and horrible investing decisions that led to its bankruptcy, are the accountants.

While the world is terrified about what China - where corporate bond defaults are now permitted - may be about to unleash on the world, most are all too happy to remain in a state of delightful ignorance. We decided to take a peek behind the scenes.

There probably isn’t a more over-used phrase thrown across the media landscape than, “It’s different this time.” One can’t look at the financial markets, the political stage, and more without shaking ones head. Nothing seems to make sense. Yet if one wants to lazily answer, “It’s different this time.” Things become crystal clear. Water now seems to run uphill. The definition of words no longer mean what they once did. (we’re still marveling on what is – is) Free society means the loss of only a few freedoms per year, as opposed to everything at once. Work is a bad thing however, if someone else goes to work and pay for your things – then that’s good. You can keep your plan if you like your plan – but if we don’t like it – well – you can’t. The Federal Reserve would never monetize the debt – however if you’re a preferred dealer in the QE (quantitative easing) program – they’ll do it for you. These precarious times leave many scratching their heads. Expressed another way, When everyone is on the band wagon – except the band. You had better take notice.

As we initially exposed over five years ago, with luminary frat brothers and sister such as Jimmy Cayne, Richard Fuld, Stan O'Neil, Martin Gruss, Michael Bloomberg, Jon Corzine, Mary Shapiro, Alan Schwartz, Larry Fink, Larry Fink, Wilbur Ross, James McDonald, this "secret" organization puts the Masons, Bilderbergs, Skull and Bones, Templars, Fight Club and all other secret societies to shame. Now, as New York Magazine infiltrates the inner workings of the "Kappa Beta Phi" society, Liberty Blitzkrieg's Mike Krieger notes the following will confirm what everyone already thought - that a great many of these oligarch financiers are complete and total sociopaths and a menace to society. 

For the first time ever, the majority of Americans are scared of their own federal government. A Pew Research poll found that 53% of Americans think the government threatens their personal rights and freedoms. Americans aren't wild about the government's currency either. Instead of holding dollars and other financial assets, investors are storing wealth in art, wine, and antique cars. The Economist reported in November, "This buying binge… is growing distrust of financial assets." Every central banker on earth has sworn an oath to Keynesian money creation, yet the yellow metal has retraced nearly $700 from its $1,895 high. The only limits to fiat money creation are the imagination of central bankers and the willingness of commercial bankers to lend. That being the case, the main culprit for gold's lackluster performance over the past two years is something else... It won't be inflation that drives up the gold price but the unwinding of massive amounts of leverage.

Trust is gone and credit is going and debt is sitting between a rock and a hard place with its grubby hands pressed together, praying that it will be forgiven, forgotten, or overlooked a little while longer. By the way, the reason trust and credit are gone is because oil is no longer cheap and world economies can’t grow anymore. They can’t afford to run the day-to-day operations of a techno-industrial society. They can only pretend to afford it. The stock markets are mere scorecards for players who can only lie and cheat now to keep the game going. Somewhere beyond all the legerdemain and fraud, however, there remains a real world that is not going away. We just don’t know what it will look like when the smog of fraud clears.

• Winter Storm Expected to Make Northeast Commutes Harder  (BBG)
•  Invasion of Spanish Builders Angers France Struggling to Compete  (BBG)
• Toronto mayor, caught ranting on video, admits drinking a 'little bit" (Reuters)
• IBM's Hardware Woes Accelerate in Fourth Quarter (WSJ)
• Sharp Divisions Come to Fore as Peace Talks on Syria Begin (NYT)
• Afghanistan cracks down on advertising in favor of U.S. troops (Reuters)
• Microsoft CEO Search Rattles Boards From Ford to Ericsson (BBG)
• Banks Sit Out Riskier Deals (WSJ)
• Netflix Seen Reporting U.S. Web Users Reach 33.1 Million (BBG)

As a result of this, the financial sector remains rife with fraud and impossible to accurately value (how can you value a business that is lying about its balance sheet?).

"Paper and digital markets levitate, central banks pull out all the stops of their magical reality-tweaking machine to manipulate everything, accounting fraud pervades public and private enterprise, everything is mis-priced, all official statistics are lies of one kind or another, the regulating authorities sit on their hands, lost in raptures of online pornography (or dreams of future employment at Goldman Sachs), the news media sprinkles wishful-thinking propaganda about a mythical “recovery” and the “shale gas miracle” on a credulous public desperate to believe, the routine swindles of medicine get more cruel and blatant each month, a tiny cohort of financial vampire squids suck in all the nominal wealth of society, and everybody else is left whirling down the drain of posterity in a vortex of diminishing returns and scuttled expectations."

The CFTC has won a consent order against MF Global requiring it to pay $1.212 billion in restitution to customers and a further $100 million civil penalty:

• *MF GLOBAL TO PAY $1.2 BLN RESTITUTION, $100M PENALTY
• *CFTC:PENALTY TO BE PAID AFTER MF FULLY PAYS CUSTOMERS/CREDITORS
• *CFTC:LITIGATION CONTINUES VS CORZINE,O'BRIEN,MF GLOBAL HOLDINGS
• *CFTC: MF GLOBAL ADMITS TO ALLEGATIONS OF LIABILITY IN ORDER

The big question is - of course - where is the money coming from?

Today the FSB was kind enough to explain in two short paragraphs and one even simpler chart, just how the aggregate leverage for the participants in even the simplest repo chain promptly becomes exponential, far above the "sum of the parts", and approaches infinity in virtually no time.

• Christie Sets Himself Up for Run in 2016 (WSJ)
• De Blasio Elected Next New York City Mayor in Landslide (WSJ)
• Hilsenrath: Fed Study: Rate Peg Off Mark (WSJ)
• MF Global Customers Will Recover All They Lost (NYT) - amazing what happens when you look under the rug
• Virginia, Alabama Voter Choices Show Tea Party Declining (BBG)
• Explosions kill 1, injure 8 in north China city (Reuters)
• Toyota boosts full-year guidance as weak yen drives revenues (FT)
• Starbucks wants to recruit 10,000 vets, spouses to its ranks (Reuters)
• U.S. Economy Slack Justifies Stimulus, Top Fed Staff Papers Show (BBG)
• Israel set to become major gas exporter (FT)