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Trustee to Seize and Liquidate Even the Stored Customer Gold and Silver Bullion From MF Global
Trustee to Seize and Liquidate Even the Stored Customer Gold and Silver Bullion From MF Global
Courtesy of Jesse's Cafe Americain
The bottom line is that apparently some warehouses and bullion dealers are not a safe place to store your gold and silver, even if you hold a specific warehouse receipt. In an oligarchy, private ownership is merely a concept, subject to interpretation and confiscation.
Although the details and the individual perpetrators are yet to be disclosed, what is now painfully clear is that the CFTC and CME regulated futures system is defaulting on its obligations. This did not even happen in the big failures like Lehman and Bear Sterns in which the customer accounts were kept whole and transferred before the liquidation process.
Obviously holding unallocated gold and silver in a fractional reserve scheme is subject to much more counterparty risk than many might have previously admitted. If a major bullion bank were to declare bankruptcy or a major exchange a default, how would it affect you? Do you think your property claims would be protected based on what you have seen this year?
You always have counter-party risk if you hold gold and silver through another party, even if they are a Primary Dealer of the Federal Reserve. As Ben said, the Fed offers no seal of approval.
If a Bankruptcy Trustee can pool your bullion into the rest of the paper assets and then liquidate it at prices that are being front run by the Street, you will have to accept whatever paper settlement that they give you.
The customer money and bullion assets are not lost, or rehypothecated or anything else. This is a pseudo-legal fig leaf, a convenient rationalization.
The customer assets were stolen, and given to at least one major financial institution by MF Global to satisfy an 11th hour margin call in the week of their bankruptcy, even as MF Global was paying bonuses to its London employees.
And in an absolutely classic Wall Street move, they are still charging the customers storage fees on the bullion which they have misappropriated from them. lol.
And now that powerful financial institution does not want to give the customer money and metal back. And they are apparently so powerful that the Trustee and the Court are reluctant to try and force its return to the customers, which is customary in this type of preferential distribution of assets prior to a bankruptcy, much less assets that were stolen. And keep in mind that in those last days the firm sent checks instead of wire transfers to customers so they could bounce them, and in a few cases even reversed completed wire transfers!
And so in the great Wall Street tradition they are trying to force the customers and the public to take the loss. The regulators and the exchange are aghast, and are trying to imagine how to resolve and spin this to preserve investor confidence and prevent a run on the system.
'Let them eat warehouse receipts.'
For many this would have been unthinkable only a few months ago. They had been cautioned and warned repeatedly, but chose to trust the financial system. And now they are suffering loss and anxiety, frozen assets, and the misappropriation of their wealth.
How more plainly can it be said? The US financial system as it now stands cannot be trusted to observe even the most basic property rights as it continues to unravel from a long standing culture of fraud.
Get your money as far away from Wall Street as is possible. And if you want to own gold and silver, take delivery and store it in a secure private facility outside the fractional reserve system.
Barrons
The Silver Rush at MF Global
By ERIN E. ARVEDLUND
December 17, 2011
It's one thing for $1.2 billion to vanish into thin air through a series of complex trades, the well-publicized phenomenon at bankrupt MF Global. It's something else for a bar of silver stashed in a vault to instantly shrink in size by more than 25%.
That, in essence, is what's happening to investors whose bars of silver and gold were held through accounts with MF Global.
The trustee overseeing the liquidation of the failed brokerage has proposed dumping all remaining customer assets—gold, silver, cash, options, futures and commodities—into a single pool that would pay customers only 72% of the value of their holdings. In other words,while traders already may have paid the full price for delivery of specific bars of gold or silver—and hold "warehouse receipts" to prove it—they'll have to forfeit 28% of the value.
That has investors fuming. "Warehouse receipts, like gold bars, are our property, 100%," contends John Roe, a partner in BTR Trading, a Chicago futures-trading firm. He personally lost several hundred thousand dollars in investments via MF Global; his clients lost even more. "We are a unique class, and instead, the trustee is doing a radical redistribution of property," he says.
Roe and others point out that, unlike other MF Global customers, who held paper assets, those with warehouse receipts have claims on assets that still exist and can be readily identified.
The tussle has been obscured by former CEO Jon Corzine's appearances on Capitol Hill. But it's a burning issue for the Commodity Customer Coalition, a group that says it represents some 8,000 investors—many of them hedge funds—with exposure to MF Global...
At stake is an unspecified, but apparently large, volume of gold and silver bars slated for delivery to traders through accounts at MF Global, which filed for bankruptcy on Oct. 31. Adding insult to the injury: Of the 28% haircut, attorney and liquidation trustee James Giddens has frozen all asset classes, meaning that traders have sat helplessly as silver prices have dropped 31% since late August, and gold has fallen 16%. To boot, the traders are still being assessed fees for storage of the commodities...
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Like I said...CRIMINALS!!
What we have here is a desperate measure to strip out the gold that Hugo Chavez is pulling out of NY vaults.
Why, oh why is it taking so long for Venezuela to reclaim the gold that it supposedly owns? Does Venezuela have warehouse receipts for its gold?
Not turning it over could be construed an act of war, and such a long delay could be construed as a form of confiscation.
The banker's Secret Plan:
1. Profit.
2. Profit.
3. ???
4. Heads on pikes.
Take Jon Corzine's assets.
We're off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz--. Man, this is one very, very deep M.F. rabbit hole. Milestones
The horse has been missing from this barn for so long, that the vultures found the carcass, first. Maybe the public will learn not to pay for promises. Then again, gamblers still put their money down, when the house goes crooked.
http://georgesblogforum.wordpress.com/2011/11/02/the-daily-climb-2/
Shit...ok time for bed....but not before taking my acid reducer.....felt a little puke come up in my mouth.
Oh, this will boost market confidence. <sarc>
Who is going to end up with those gold bars when the customers' physical assets are liquidated?
Somehow, Monday is beginning to feel like a buying opportunity for those who want physical. That is, of course, unless the bulliion dealers refuse to sell at the spot price of paper.
wall st by design runs on greed or fear.
Fed makes sure it runs on greed.
time to teach banksters to stand on their own merit......
In an oligarchy, private ownership is merely a concept, subject to interpretation and confiscation.
So is "America, Land of the Free" and all that goes with that myth, including the Constitution and all contractual law. It is and always has been throughout the history of this country, an illusion perpetrated by The Power to control the masses. Money is Power. Might makes right. The difference between now and the last quarter of the 18th century when the illusion was codified is that is you didn't like it, you could go west. Now there's no where to go, no where to hide.
Which, as Sun Tze would have advised, is a terrible strategy. You always leave your opponent an exit. Once backed into a corner, with nothing left to do but fight, he turns most vicious and dangerous.
Could start with a discussion about the 'freedom' of the First Nations and the slaves.
Some more dangerous yos
http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/portal.php
Here, these people seem to be kinda scary...
http://www.thetalkingdrum.com/
There is always the option of retribution.....is that not an unailianable right?
Look for car wrecks, explosions, and sub-sonice .22 holes in skulls. Family members of trustees disappearing. Some of those warehouse tickets are owned by people from Chicago and New Jersy.
In an oligarchy, private ownership is merely a concept, subject to interpretation and confiscation.
It would appear all we own in the oligarchy is DEBT, assets are fungible, but debt is never written off or forgiven. Matter of fact surcharges and penalties make sure debt is never reduced, let alone paid off.
This game grows thin
Insurmountable debts appear to be forgivable for the improperly connected, through the socialisation of it to the next generations of taxpayers...
On the other hand, if you're a mere debt slave that don't cough up...rendition to FEMA for a waterboarding, held indefinitely without charge or trial...
And if making too much of a fuss or getting too active beforehand, a quick bit of gang-stalking, gassing, direct-energy weapon induced illness, pollonium, or Morgellons...?
It did indeed start VERY early......
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/duel/peopleevents/pande22.html
OWS....Occupy Whiskey Street
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion
Call it progress. In 1794 we reached for our firearms and were ready to start shooting. Today we reach for our lawyers, our lobbyists, our PACs and our PR firms. And most of our shots are verbal.
It goes to show (I think) how civilized we have all become. (A quote from this article)........http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/fall96/whiskey.html
There's little civility left in anything that I think when fuming about the Corporate run, Fascist model America. I prefered those wistful days of yesteryear when the law had a backbone and politicians were statesmen; Circa 1776.
X 15 trillion and counting.
This goes beyond greed and predation.
This is manic addiction. Wall St must be addicted to the high it gets from ripping up dumb money.
A predator at least rests when its stomach is full. But Wall St doesn't know when to stop. They can't stop.
This will be their undoing.
That's in your face confiscation of your property. Madoff was a blip. If the investors are not made whole, and Corzine walks. Get your guns ready boys and girls. You can only recover by force.
This is the end of wall street.
This is the end of wall street.
No, it's the end of your 401k, pension fund, and any other assets they can get their hands on ...not to mention what you foolishly leave in a brokerage account right under their nose.
And just how many 'normal' middle class citizens do you know that run around packing a piece? We sit in front of our monitors and gasp at this rip-off and that swindle while listening to the din of rage......yet nothing gets done? Gee, imagine that? It won't stop until the oligarchs reach down one more rung and try and grasp that last nickle from the poor that things will get violent. THAT will be their undoing. All the small time hustlers and drug dealers are busy picking up those nickles now and can't be bothered with an activity that doesn't 'raise the stack'. That will change soon. When it does, Kyle Bass's crib will be occupied with more people than he had planned for.
My father was a farm boy and served in World War II.
We grew up in the country where there were snakes (not the two-legged) kinds to be encountered. My parents had small businesses and brought home the contents of the tills at night.
My siblings and I grew up with loaded guns in the cars and in the house.
A gun is not a badge of wierdness.
I Carry.
It's bigger. Is the end of fraud money.
At the top of the list is the US dollar. Fuck it and all who touch it.
You will see.
Masters of one thing -- fraud.
Fraud! you say. I concur. Perhaps Kyle Bass ain't so crazy after all:
Legislation Seeks Steel Cents and Nickels December 16, 2011 By Michael ZielinskiTwo bills were introduced in the House of Representatives on December 15, 2011 which seek to immediately alter the metallic composition of the one cent and five cent coins. Although the text of the bills is not yet available, statements released by Rep. Steve Stivers who introduced the bills H.R. 3693 and H.R. 3694 indicate that the legislation would require the coins to be made from steel.
“This legislation is a common-sense solution to decrease the cost of minting pennies and nickels,” said Stivers. “Not only will it cost less, but steel is an American resource that we have and can manufacture right here in our backyard.”
The Empire is falling:
"Historians and economists have shown that the Roman economy suffered from significant monetary inflation, particularly in the latter half of the third century. This inflation was primarily due to the devaluation of currency. Moreover, the Roman Empire paid for its army partially through inflating the Empire’s currency. The practice of absolving military debt through inflation significantly contributed to, if not directly caused, the eventual collapse of the Roman economy.
Money is simply a commonly accepted medium of exchange within a given market. Guido Hülsmann lists several examples of items that have been used as a medium of exchange throughout history, including cattle, tobacco, and precious metals, with the latter being the most prominent in highly developed societies.1 In a free market, money itself should be a commodity. Further, Hülsmann states that the value of money is dependent on its nonmonetary value within that same economy.2 It follows that money, as just another commodity upon the market, is subject to market forces such as supply and demand.
The Roman Empire, which was a well-developed society even in comparison to the third world countries of today, adopted gold, silver, bronze and copper as media of exchange. The monetary system of the Roman Empire under Augustus consisted of five different coins which were created from those four precious metals. The most valuable coin was the aureus, which was comprised of eight grams of pure gold. The denarius was made of three and nine tenths grams of silver; twenty five of these were equivalent to an aureus. The sestertius was worth one quarter of a denarius and consisted of twenty seven and three tenths grams of bronze. The dupondius, also composed of bronze, was half the value and weight of the sestertius. The least valuable coin, the As, was approximately ten and ninety two hundredths grams of copper; two Asses equaled a dupondius. (http://www2.gcc.edu/dept/econ/ASSC/Papers2010-2011/Botting_inflationmili...)
They'd be made in China, with recycled steel from WTC and the cash for clunkers programme..
Corzine was "just using business judgment" wasn't he? These is no such thing as "negligence" or "theft" on Wall Street....only "business judgment" I read.
Could it be that they made an example of Madoff because he actually fessed up to committing the crime?
Asset-strippers doing what they do best...with the help of a conflicted trustee.
The trustee is not conflicted; he/she knows exactly what they're doing.
Lesson: If you can't touch your asset in <5 minutes, it doesn't exist.
Lesson: If you can't touch your ass in <5 minutes, you don't exist.
Hard to touch all my cows in <5min though.
yeh that sure worked well for people after Roosevelt confiscated it while leaving gold stored overseas untouched
Seriously, if you can put money into farmland, livestock and some machinery it's a hell of a lot harder to steal. I have some PM's too, but 95% in cashflow producing assets. With the added advantage of being as far from the city as my wife will allow.
Ever heard of a Sheriffs Sale?
A minor shift in property tax rates at the state level and voila', no more land.
I agree, have liquid assets, for scenarios like that, bottom line if you cant own land, you are in more shit then gold alone can save you from.
Most likely only the little people turned in their gold in 1933. Others took it outside the US and did very well after the dollar devaluation from $20.67 to $35 an ounce in 1934. Border controls in 1933 were likely a minor inconvenience. My guess is the well-connected had a heads up about the revaluation and bought accordingly outside the US.
If you're worried, send it over here to Oz, and we'll look after it for you...
I've thought about this problem before. If I could find a private vault, I'd store my gold there ... but it would have to be a vault only. No banking or investment functions ... storage only. Pay a nominal service fee, and the vault stores your gold or other valuables under armed security. Seems like that would draw significant consumer interest. Yet it doesn't exist ... at least where I live.
There are banks with vaults all over small-town America ... You can pick one up for little to nothing. Buy one of those.
We can indeed pick up banks (with vaults) across America for little to nothing these days. Or perhaps you were talking about renting a vault from one of those which is still in business?
There was a private vault storage in Vancouver many years ago that was robbed. Rumor and circumstances pointed to the RCMP as having at worst been the brains behind the crime and at best allowed the crime to proceed when it could have been prevented.
Of course much of the loot was not claimed and was kept by the authorities.
Shovels are cheap.
Well yeah, that's essentially what I do. I will never leave my physical in a "safe-deposit" box at a bank. So, in the absence of any other solution, this is what we are left with ... finding unique individual solutions to storage. Like I said in my first post, I think the demand for such a system of bank-independent storage exists, but no one has tried the concept to my knowledge.
+1 ...gps