Detroit Defaults On Some Debt To Avoid Largest Municipal Bankruptcy Filing In U.S. History

Detroit defaults on some debt to avoid bankruptcy filing (Reuters, June 14, 2013):

Detroit defaulted on some debt on Friday and proposed that creditors take a drastic cut in the money they are owed by the “insolvent” city in order to avoid the largest municipal bankruptcy filing in U.S. history.

In a meeting with creditors, Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr announced a moratorium on principal and interest payments on the city’s unsecured debt, and for the first time presented a detailed proposal calling on the holders of nearly $17 billion in Detroit debt to make substantial concessions.

Under his proposal, Orr said unsecured debt holders would be paid less than 10 cents on the dollar, but some creditors would get a bit more based on city revenue.

Read moreDetroit Defaults On Some Debt To Avoid Largest Municipal Bankruptcy Filing In U.S. History

Detroit Bankruptcy Decision Depends On Next 6 Weeks

Related article: Detroit May Run Out Of Cash Next Month


Detroit Bankruptcy Decision Depends On Next 6 Weeks As Kevyn Orr Deals With Debt (Huffington Post/Reuters, May 19, 2013):

DETROIT, May 19 (Reuters) – Bond restructurings, negotiated settlements with bondholders and bond insurers, and tough talk with unionized workers are on the agenda as Detroit’s emergency financial manager tries to meet a self-imposed, six-week deadline to decide whether the city can get through its financial crisis without a bankruptcy filing.

Kevyn Orr, a former bankruptcy lawyer, in his first report to the state of Michigan since Governor Rick Snyder appointed him, laid out last week a bracing picture of steps he may need to take to address the city’s troubles.

Read moreDetroit Bankruptcy Decision Depends On Next 6 Weeks

Henry Paulson Burned As Another Electric Car Maker Goes Up In Flames

Hank Paulson Burned As Another Electric Car Maker Goes Up In Flames (ZeroHedge, Mai 1, 2013):

It would appear that (apart from Tesla, for now) that any thing related to electric cars is going up in flames. From Fisker’s fubar (and blowing all that hard-earned government funding) and Chevy’s Volt dysphoria to A-123 Systems (the Lithium-Ion battery-maker) and now Coda – which Yahoo Finance notes was among an emerging crop of California startups seeking to build emission-free electric cars three years ago. After selling just 100 of its $37,250 five-passenger vehicles, Coda filed Chapter 11 today taking a few well-known investors with it. On the bright side, the government was not involved (from what we can tell), but on the even brighter side, none other than former US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson was among those burned by the company going up in flames (as was Harbinger’s Phil Falcone).Despite the $300 million the company managed to raise, that quickly went and unable to raise an additional $150 million in new funding (we suspect blaming ‘market conditions’ for its mere $22million raise), Coda had no choice (and Fortress was more than happy to scoop it up and provide the DIP – the cars will make for fancy paperweights in a collateral liquidation). ‘Green’ is the new ‘red’ as it seems when it comes to electric cars, regardless of funding source – private or public – it goes up in flames.

Via Reuters,

Green car startup Coda Holdings Inc filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Wednesday after selling just 100 of its all-electric sedans, another example of battery-powered vehicles’ failure to break into the mass market.

… exit the auto sector and refocus on energy storage, a far less capital-intensive business.

Read moreHenry Paulson Burned As Another Electric Car Maker Goes Up In Flames

Record 2,564 Spanish Firms File For Bankruptcy In Q1, 45% Higher Than Year Ago

Record 2,564 Spanish Firms File For Bankruptcy In Q1, 45% Higher Than Year Ago (ZeroHedge, April 8, 2013):

Perhaps the best measure to gauge the European recovery is by the soaring number of companies going bust, because only from this perspective is Europe finally “fixed.” As Reuters reports citing a report by Axesor, a record 2,564 companies filed for “insolvency proceedings”, a more palatable version of the word bankruptcy, in the first quarter – an increase of 10% from Q4 and up a whopping 45% from Q1 2012. The reasons given: “tight credit conditions and meager demand.” Or in other words: no actual cash flow to fund demand for products and services. Obviously it will take some truly phenomenal massaging and manipulation to represent GDP as rising in this environment, but we are confident the Spanish authorities are already on it, and somehow the Spanish pension fund, already 97% filled with Spanish government bonds, will somehow have a finger in yet another completely unbelievable economic print which will fool most of the algos most of the time on flashing red Bloomberg headlines.

Per Reuters:

“Most Spanish businesses did not prepare for a crisis this big or this long, which could be a determining factor,” said Javier Ramos-Juste, head of economic studies at Axesor.

Spain has been in its second recession in five years for the past 18 months and unemployment is more than 25 percent.

Read moreRecord 2,564 Spanish Firms File For Bankruptcy In Q1, 45% Higher Than Year Ago

It’s Official: Stockton Becomes Biggest US City To Declare Bankruptcy

Stockton Becomes Biggest US City To Declare Bankruptcy (It’s Official) (ZeroHedge, April 1, 2013):

A mere nine months after we first discussed the inevitability of Stockton, CA.’s bankruptcy, a judge has ordered today that the city will now become the most populous in the US to be declared bankrupt.

  • *STOCKTON CREDITORS DIDN’T NEGOTIATE IN GOOD FAITH, JUDGE SAYS

Creditors are pushing to get the city out of bankruptcy but the judge states that “by any measure” the city was insolvent. So, in summary, yeah, it was broke years ago, it still is broke – despite the best efforts by the Central Planning Reserve to reflate the same housing bubble that was the primary reason for the city’s insolvency in the first place. Only this time, it’s official!

Via Reuters:

Read moreIt’s Official: Stockton Becomes Biggest US City To Declare Bankruptcy

UK Bankruptcy Tzar On Verge Of Bankruptcy

UK Bankruptcy Tzar On Verge Of Bankruptcy (ZeroHedge, March 13, 2013):

Despite around $135 million in bailouts, the UK government’s Insolvency Service disputes its own insolvency. The FT reports that one British MP summed it up – “it is fair to say that if this was a company it would be in deep trouble.” The group, which polices bankrupt companies, liquidates failed businesses and disqualifies unfit directors, would be bankrupt were it not for the government’s cash injection. Dependent on fees and recoveries from bankrupt companies, the agency over-estimated its ability to recover assets from collapsed businesses. It dismisses the insolvency claims against itself however, noting the service is “living within its means” and expects to be deficit-free by 2015 (though it is unclear how unless they expect recoveries to rise dramatically or bankruptcies to increase significantly) as it is forced to provide services even when there is no prospect of recovering fees from bankrupt people or companies. Their rate of prosecution has dropped from 40% to 21% and even the creditor community has lost faith arguing that the agency’s model was “unreliable in the current economic climate” and required urgent reform.

Via The FT,

The UK government’s Insolvency Service is all but insolvent.

Experts suggest the group, which polices bankrupt companies, liquidates failed businesses and disqualifies unfit directors, would be broke had it not received an emergency injection of cash from the government.

Read moreUK Bankruptcy Tzar On Verge Of Bankruptcy

Twinkies Soar On Ebay … $8,000 For A Single Twinkie! … And Other Offers

Capitalism At Work: Twinkies Soar On Ebay (ZeroHedge, Nov 16, 2012):

The invisible hand at work once again as fat-fingered demand dominates union-stifled supply… $8,000 for a single Twinkie… and other offers… It seems, once again, that there are more than a few greater fools who still have no idea just how the bankruptcy process works… will Twinkies be rebranded Bimbettes?

and Via Mashable:

Here’s what’s currently up for sale and bid on eBay:

Read moreTwinkies Soar On Ebay … $8,000 For A Single Twinkie! … And Other Offers

As Legendary Nurburgring Files For Bankruptcy, Broke Greece Launches Its Own Formula 1 Race Track

As Legendary Nurburgring Files For Bankruptcy, Broke Greece Launches Its Own Formula 1 Race Track (ZeroHedge, Oct 1, 2012):

There is something very wrong with this story. Two months ago, the world’s most legendary race track, Germany’s Nürburgring filed for bankruptcy. As AP wrote then: “Germany’s legendary Nürburgring racetrack and entertainment complex is effectively bankrupt. The circuit—which hosted Formula One’s German Grand Prix last year—is to launch insolvency proceedings amid fears that it could run out of cash while the European Commission considers planned government aid. The state government in Rhineland-Palatinate, which owns the financially troubled Nuerburgring GmbH, decided on the move on Wednesday, the dapd news agency reported…. A state subsidy had been in place since a disastrous development plan left the ‘Ring organization saddled with more than 350 million euros in debt. While the Nordschleife—the circuit’s famous “North Loop” which covers more than 13 miles—generates healthy operating profits, the income does not cover the interest payments on the enormous debt incurred when the state entered into the plan with two developers, Kai Richter and Jorg Lindner.” Sadly such is life in a world in which not everyone is bailed out by the government, and when it comes to the “fairness for everyone, bankruptcy for no one” doctrine, Germany has still not jumped on the bandwagon.

Read moreAs Legendary Nurburgring Files For Bankruptcy, Broke Greece Launches Its Own Formula 1 Race Track

The Student Loan Debt Bubble Is Creating Millions Of Modern Day Serfs

The Student Loan Debt Bubble Is Creating Millions Of Modern Day Serfs (Economic Collapse, Sep 10, 2012):

Every single year, millions of young adults head off to colleges and universities all over America full of hopes and dreams.  But what most of those fresh-faced youngsters do not realize is that by taking on student loan debt they are signing up for a life of debt slavery.  Student loan debt has become a trillion dollar bubble which has shattered the financial lives of tens of millions of young college graduates.  When you are just starting out and you are not making a lot of money, having to make payments on tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt can be absolutely crippling.  The total amount of student loan debt in the United States has now surpassed the total amount of credit card debt, and student loan debt is much harder to get rid of.  Many young people view college as a “five year party“, but when the party is over millions of those young people basically end up as modern day serfs as they struggle to pay off all of the debt that they have accumulated during their party years.  Bankruptcy laws have been changed to make it incredibly difficult to get rid of student loan debt, so once you have it you are basically faced with two choices: either you are going to pay it or you are going to die with it.

But we don’t warn kids about this before they go to school.  We just endlessly preach to them that they need a college degree in order to get a “good job”, and that after they graduate they will easily be able to pay off their student loans with the “good job” that they will certainly be able to find.

Sadly, tens of millions of young Americans have left college in recent years only to find out that they were lied to all along.

As I have written about previously, college has become a giant money making scam and the victims of the scam are our young people.

Back in 1952, a full year of tuition at Harvard was only $600.

Today, it is over $35,000.

Why does college have to cost so much?

At every turn our young people are being ripped off.

Read moreThe Student Loan Debt Bubble Is Creating Millions Of Modern Day Serfs

GM Loses Over $49,000 On Every Chevy Volt

GM Loses Over $49,000 On Every Chevy Volt (ZeroHedge, Sep 10, 2012):

Watching Phil LeBlow providing Ford with a reacharound this morning reminded us of total farce that is both the forest and the trees of the US auto industry. We have discussed the FUBAR channel-stuffing and the subprime-lending SNAFU but now, as Reuters reports, we see the ugly truth about GM’s little baby “the Volt is over-engineered and over-priced”. Nearly two years after the introduction of the path-breaking plug-in hybrid, GM is still losing as much as $49,000 on each Volt it builds….

Furthermore, there are some Americans paying just $5,050 to drive around for two years in a vehicle that cost as much as $89,000 to produce. And while the loss per vehicle will shrink as more are built and sold, GM is still years away from making money on the Volt, which will soon face new competitors from Ford, Honda and others.

Read moreGM Loses Over $49,000 On Every Chevy Volt

Spain: Unprecedented Surge In Corporate Bankruptcies (Chart)

Spain’s Hell Is A Bankruptcy Lawyer’s Heaven (ZeroHedge, Sep 5, 2012):

You’ve seen Spanish youth unemployment rates soaring; been brow-beaten with data on the dramatic rise and acceleration of Spanish bank non-performing loans; and the rate of Spanish capital outflows chart is now ubiquitous; but where there is pain, there is also pleasure. As we are always looking on the bright-side and trying to find a silver-lining, Michael Cembalest provides just such a chart. To wit, the unprecedented surge in corporate bankruptcies in Spain; without question, a boon for the bankruptcy-lawyer industry and perhaps just the economic boost the country needs. Tongue-out-of-cheek, this is just a disastrous chart of reality on the ground.

ATP Oil And Gas Files For Bankruptcy, CEO Blames Obama

ATP Oil And Gas Files For Bankruptcy, CEO Blames Obama (ZeroHedge, Aug 18, 2012):

Now that the “alternative energy” industry is in shambles following one after another solar company bankruptcy, as the realization that at current prices, alternative energy business models are still just too unsustainable, no matter how much public equity is pumped into them, more “traditional” companies have resumed circling the drain. First, it was Patriot Coal, which finally succumbed to reality a month ago. Now it is the turn of ATP Oil and Gas, which filed Chapter 11 in Texas last night. And sure enough, in a world in which nobody is to blame, and everything is someone else’s fault, the CEO promptly made a case that he is blameless and it is all Obama’s fault. According to Forbes: “The founder and chairman of [ATP Paul Bulmahn] wants the world to know that the Obama Administration—and its illegal ban on deepwater drilling in the wake of the BP disaster—is to blame for the implosion of his company. Not him. “It is all directly attributable to what the government did to us,” he rails. “This Administration has gone out of its way to create problems for my company, the company that I formed from scratch.”

Forbes continues:

Read moreATP Oil And Gas Files For Bankruptcy, CEO Blames Obama

California: San Bernardino Files For Bankruptcy With Over $1 BILLION In Debts

San Bernardino, California, files for bankruptcy with over $1 billion in debts (Reuters, Aug 2, 2012):

San Bernardino filed for bankruptcy protection on Wednesday citing more than $1 billion of debts and making it the third California city to seek protection from creditors.

The city of about 210,000 residents 65 miles east of Los Angeles declared a fiscal crisis last month after a report said local government had tapped out its reserves and projected spending would top revenue by $45 million in the fiscal year that began on July 1.

The filing, made in the United States Bankruptcy Court, Central California District, states that the city has “more than $1 billion” in liabilities, and estimated that it has between 10,001 and 25,000 creditors.

Read moreCalifornia: San Bernardino Files For Bankruptcy With Over $1 BILLION In Debts

Third California City (San Bernardino) Files For Bankruptcy

San Bernardino Is Third California City to Opt for Bankruptcy (Bloomberg, July 11, 2012):

San Bernardino’s City Council voted to become the third California city this year to file for bankruptcy, as it struggles with declining tax revenue, growing employee costs and accounting discrepancies in its ledgers.

The council voted 4 to 2, with one abstention, last night to authorize a filing under Chapter 9 of U.S. bankruptcy law. The city of 209,000, about 65 miles (105 kilometers) east of Los Angeles, is so broke it can’t make its Aug. 15 payroll, interim City Manager Andrea Travis-Miller said.

“If the employees are not paid on Aug. 15, on Aug. 16 there will be a mass exodus of city employees,” City Attorney James Penman told the council before the vote. “People are not going to work when they don’t get paid. Most of our employees will not show up to work. That would include police, fire, refuse, everybody. The city will virtually shut down.”

Read moreThird California City (San Bernardino) Files For Bankruptcy

Stockton To File For Bankruptcy, Will Be Largest U.S. City To Fail

Stockton to file for bankruptcy, will be largest U.S. city to fail (Los Angeles Times, June 26, 2012):

STOCKTON — This Gold Rush-era port city, an epicenter of California’s agricultural exports, will become the nation’s largest city to seek protection under the U.S. bankruptcy code after its City Council on Tuesday stopped bond payments, slashed employee health and retirement benefits and adopted a day-to-day survival budget.

City Manager Bob Deis likened the process to cutting off an arm to save the body. He is expected to file bankruptcy papers immediately.

Read moreStockton To File For Bankruptcy, Will Be Largest U.S. City To Fail

Many Americans Need Their Tax Refunds So They Can Afford To File For Bankruptcy

Tax refunds being used to pay for bankruptcy filings (USA Today, April 12, 2012):

Some Americans spend their tax refunds on high-tech gadgets and long-awaited vacations. Others use the cash to file for bankruptcy.

More than 200,000 money-strapped households will use their tax refunds this year to pay for bankruptcy filing and legal fees, says a new study by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The NBER research confirms what bankruptcy lawyers have long known: At the first part of the year, when Americans receive their tax refunds, there almost always is a spike in personal bankruptcy filings.

But that has been especially true since the cost of bankruptcy soared after U.S. bankruptcy laws changed in 2005. And many more families have been forced to delay filing until they can afford to pay the fees, the NBER study says.

“If people are expecting a big refund, they go as fast as they can to a tax preparer,” says Henry Sommer, a bankruptcy lawyer in Philadelphia. “They need the money so they can afford to file for bankruptcy.”

Read moreMany Americans Need Their Tax Refunds So They Can Afford To File For Bankruptcy

From Enron To Sino-Forest – Same Old Song

From Enron To Sino-Forest – Same Old Song (ZeroHedge, Mar 30, 2012)

Enron –> Worldcom –> Adelphia –> Lehman –> MF Global –> Greece –> Sino Forest –> ????

I would rank these as some of the more notorious bankruptcies. These weren’t normal course of business bankruptcies. These were dark and deviant. They have many similarities.

Opaque and convoluted accounting and finances are common to them all. Whether it was Jedi for Enron, repo 105 for Lehman, or off-market swaps with Goldman for Greece, they all used every trick in the book to keep debt off balance sheet and to obfuscate the risk.

Read moreFrom Enron To Sino-Forest – Same Old Song

Hilarious: Sino Forest Seeks $4 Billion From Muddy Waters In Damages … As It Files For Bankruptcy

Friday Funny: Sino Forest Seeks $4 Billion From Muddy Waters In Damages… As It Files For Bankruptcy (ZeroHedge, Mar 30, 2012):

Actually, in retrospect this may well be the funniest pair of headlines in one place ever.

  • SINO-FOREST TO FILE FOR BANKRUPTCY, MAY SEEK SALE OF COMPANY

But…

  • SINO FOREST SEEKING $4B IN DAMAGES AGAINST MUDDY WATERS

Uh? What? #Ref! #Ref! #Ref! We wonder: if Sino Forest files for bankruptcy in its forest of imaginary trees, did it really file for bankruptcy.

In other news, how many of the following analysts who had a buy on the stock as of the day the Muddy Waters report saved countless other investors the 100% certainty of a full wipe out by putting their money in Sino Forest, have been terminated.

The Following Sino Forest Sell-Side Analysts Should Be Terminated Immediately

As we pointed out the day after we broke the news that Paulson is about to suffer a historic loss on the Sino Forest Chinese fraud (a loss that has now been realized), the Paulson analyst who suggested this humiliating investment for the man who is now best known for hiring Paolo Pellegrini, have long since seen the pink slip. The story however does not end there: below we present again the sell side analysts who had Buy and Outperform ratings on what is now the biggest financial ponzi fraud since Madoff. In order to protect the reputation of such host firms as Raymond James, Dundee Securities, TD Newcrest, Credit Suisse, RBC, BMO and Scotia Capital, we urge the management teams to immediately terminate the following sell-side “analysts” whose work on TRE.TO was nothing but piggybacking on groupthink, doing absolutely no actual due diligence, costing clients billions in losses, and whose names will now forever be enshrined in the pantheon of “most worthless sellside analysts” ever.

Read moreHilarious: Sino Forest Seeks $4 Billion From Muddy Waters In Damages … As It Files For Bankruptcy

3 Months After The MF Global Bankruptcy, We Find That $1.2 Billion (Or More) In Client Money Has Simply ‘VAPORIZED’

I told you many times before that your money isn’t safe. And please don’t tell me that the FDIC insures your bankdeposits up to $250.000.

Max Keiser And Gerald Celente On MF Global Bankruptcy Implications – The JP Morgan Connection – Goldman Sachs – CME (‘Chicago Mafia Exchange’) – Gold, Silver – Syria, Iran – Entire Financial System Collapsing, One Big Global Ponzi Scheme – False Flag, WW III – Bank Holiday, Economic Martial Law – ‘YOUR MONEY ISN’T SAFE’

For most Americans (and Europeans) the big ‘awakening’ will come.

Got gold and silver (food, water, etc.)?


3 Months After The MF Global Bankruptcy, We Find That $1.2 Billion (Or More) In Client Money Has “Vaporized” (ZeroHedge, Jan. 29, 2012):

On the three month bankruptcy anniversary of the company whose rehypothecation gimmicks will one day be seen as a harbinger of everything that is  broken with the multi-trillion ponzi system, but not just yet despite loud warnings otherwise, we are getting close to a final verdict of where the $1.2 billion (and possibly more as originally predicted by Zero Hedge – see below) in commingled client money may have gone. Note the use of the passive voice because using the active, as in money that MF Global executives stole from clients, is prohibited in a legal system in which nobody goes to jail for something as modest as $1.2 billion in theft. That verdict? “Vaporized.” No really (and yes, in the passive voice of course). From the WSJ: “As the sprawling probe that includes regulators, criminal and congressional investigators, and court-appointed trustees grinds on, the findings so far suggest that a “significant amount” of the money could have “vaporized” as a result of chaotic trading at MF Global during the week before the company’s Oct. 31 bankruptcy filing, said a person close to the investigation.Uh huh… Because money simply vaporizes. Which means one of two things: i) the “vaporization” is merely the phrase that so called investigators use to avoid the far more troubling sounding “stolen” as it would imply guilt, something which the former NJ governor and Goldman CEO (and not to mention JP Morgan which most likely was on the receiving end of the $1.2 billion + transaction) will, under guidance from counsel, sternly disagree with, or ii) the capital markets are such an unprecedented and manipulated fraud, that nobody has any clue at any moment, where any client money is, and that any residual capital still “invested” in mythical representations of “assets”, which are likely rehypothecated so many times, that not even Bank of America’s robosigning division would have a clue where to start unraveling, will promptly be converted into tangible manifestations of capital. So when someone asks what happened to stock market volume, and to investor confidence in the “stock market” feel free to use just that phrase: “it vaporized.”

WSJ “explains” how $1.2 billion “vaporized”

Many officials now believe certain employees at MF Global dipped into the “customer segregated account” that the New York company was supposed to keep separate from its own assets—and then used the money to meet demands for more collateral or to unfreeze assets at banks and other counterparties as they grew more concerned about their financial exposure to MF Global.

Read more3 Months After The MF Global Bankruptcy, We Find That $1.2 Billion (Or More) In Client Money Has Simply ‘VAPORIZED’

A Run On The Global Banking System – How Close Are We?

From the article:

As I write this, a lot of investors whom I know personally—who are sophisticated, wealthy, and not at all the paranoid type—are quietly pulling their money out of all brokerage firms, all banks, all equity firms. They are quietly trading out of their paper assets and going into the actual, physical asset.

Note that they’re not trading into the asset—they’re simply exchanging their paper-asset for the real thing.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Prepare for collapse.


A Run On The Global Banking System—How Close Are We? (Gonzalo Lira, Dec. 27, 2011):

Nine weeks after its bankruptcy, the general public still hasn’t quite realized the implications of the MF Global scandal.

Once he looks down, then he’ll begin to fall.

My own sense is, this is the first tremor of the earthquake that’s coming to the global financial system. And how the central banks and financial regulators treated the “Systemically Important Financial Institutions” that had exposure to MF Global—to the detriment of the ordinary, blameless customer who got royally ripped off in its bankruptcy—is both the template of how the next financial crisis will be handled, and an accelerator that will make the next crisis happen that much sooner.

So first off, what happened with MF Global?

Read moreA Run On The Global Banking System – How Close Are We?

Who Gave Permission To A Bankrupt MF Global To Sell Italian Bonds To JP Morgan At A 5% Discount To Market Value?

Who Gave Permission To A Bankrupt MF Global To Sell Italian Bonds To JPM At A 5% Discount To Market Value? (ZeroHedge, Dec. 13, 2011):

We already knew previously that shortly after it filed for bankruptcy, George Soros bought $2 billion in Italian bonds from the bankrupt MF Global. One thing we did not know was the terms of the purchase. Today, the WSJ has disclosed another facet of the bankruptcy which like Lehman will expose gigabytes of dirt on the corrupt US financial system. Namely, that after liquidating, MF sold Italian bonds – the culprit that ultimately led to the bank’s bankruptcy – to none other than JP Morgan and “one large hedge fund.”So far so good. Where it gets disturbing is that as the WSJ discloses,buyers paid about 89 cents on the dollar for the Italian bonds, compared with a market price of about 94 cents at the time, according to the trader who bought them…Today, those bonds trade at more than 96 cents, according to Tradeweb.” Our question is first, why did the bankrupt MF Global estate proceed to unload post-filing assets and under whose discretion: after all the company had entered bankruptcy, and it is up to the estate, which includes bondholders and other stakeholders to determine what assets and under what conditions, can be liquidated. Did MF Global believe that the same exemption from the law that it apparently thought was applicable to its pre-petition, was also valid under bankruptcy? Because if the firm did not get prior-permission form a bankruptcy judge to liquidate these assets, this is an act far worse than commingling and even the firesale of Lehman’s US Brokerage to Barclays for pennies on the dollar – this is flaunting bankruptcy law front and center.

Secondly, and perhaps just as important, who on the estate agreed to give JPM a 5% explicit discount to what the article notes was a fair price that is 5% higher and which by definition would have had bidders at that price. We hope someone in the Senate will take a quick look at this note, and the related WSJ article, and ask Messrs Corzine et al to provide some much needed clarity on this topic.

Jon Corzine: ‘Don’t know’ Where MF Global Customers’ $1.2 Billion Went (Video)

Gerald Celente (not only) on MF Global:

Gerald Celente: ‘IT’S FASCIST. CAN’T YOU SEE IT?’ – ‘It’s A TAKEOVER’ – ‘Hail Obama!’ – ‘The United States Has Become One Big Warsaw Ghetto’

Gerald Celente Endorses Ron Paul For President – ‘The Entire Economic System Is Collapsing’ – ‘Fascism Has Come To America In Every Form’ (Video – Nov. 29, 2011)


Corzine: ‘Don’t know’ where MF Global customers’ $1.2B went (USA Today, Dec. 8, 2011):

Former MF Global chief executive Jon Corzine apologized “to all those affected” by the brokerage’s collapse Thursday as he told a congressional committee he doesn’t know what happened to $1.2 billion in missing customer funds.

Testifying under subpoena at a House Agriculture Committee hearing, Corzine, a former Democratic U.S. senator and ex-Goldman Sachs chief, portrayed himself as stunned about the massive shortfall that emerged as regulators and federal investigators began probing MF Global’s Oct. 31 bankruptcy.

“I simply do not know where the money is, or why the accounts have not been reconciled to date,” said Corzine, 64, in his first public comments since his resignation was announced four days after the bankruptcy filing.

Read moreJon Corzine: ‘Don’t know’ Where MF Global Customers’ $1.2 Billion Went (Video)

It Gets More Bizarre: MF Global Mixed Funds, Transferred Abroad

Gerald Celente on MF Global (MUST-LISTEN!!!):

Gerald Celente Endorses Ron Paul For President – ‘The Entire Economic System Is Collapsing’ – ‘Fascism Has Come To America In Every Form’ (Video – Nov. 29, 2011):


Exclusive: MF Global mixed funds, transferred abroad (Reuters, Dec. 3, 2011):

WASHINGTON – Regulators investigating the collapse of MF Global have determined that the firm combined money between securities and futures accounts owned by customers, and transferred funds outside the country to at least one entity, a source said on Friday.

“The further we get into (the investigation) the more complex it is … but we’re making progress,” the source said, adding that the commingling and transferring of money is making it harder for regulators to determine what money belongs where.

MF Global took futures segregated money and put it into the account for customer securities, essentially mixing futures and securities that were both owned by customers, said an official familiar with the matter.

Until now, it was believed that only customer futures accounts were affected.

The source also told Reuters that MF Global had been using customer funds for “several days if not weeks” rather than just a few days before the firm collapsed.

Regulators had previously thought the firm was using customer funds on the Thursday and Friday before it filed for bankruptcy on October 31.

CME Group, the Chicago exchange where MF Global traded, said it had reviewed the company’s books a week before the bankruptcy and found no issues with the customer money.

Read moreIt Gets More Bizarre: MF Global Mixed Funds, Transferred Abroad

American Airlines Files For Bankruptcy Protection; Incoming CEO Says Flights May Be Cut

American Airlines files for bankruptcy protection; incoming CEO says flights may be cut (Washington Post, Nov. 29 2011):

DALLAS — The parent company of American Airlines filed for bankruptcy protection Tuesday, seeking relief from crushing debt caused by high fuel prices and expensive labor contracts that its competitors shed years ago.

The company also replaced its CEO, and the incoming leader said American would probably cut its flight schedule “modestly” while it reorganizes. He did not give specifics. American said its frequent-flier program would be unaffected.

AMR Corp., which owns American, was one of the last major U.S. airline companies that had avoided bankruptcy. Competitors used bankruptcy to shed costly labor contracts, unburden themselves of debt, and start making money again. Delta was the last major airline to file for bankruptcy protection, in 2005.

American — the nation’s third-largest airline and proud of an 80-year history that reaches back to the dawn of passenger travel — was stuck with higher costs and had to match its competitors’ lower fares or lose passengers.

Other airlines also grew by pursuing acquisitions and expanding overseas. American was the biggest airline in the world in 2008, but has been surpassed by United, which combined with Continental, and Delta, which bought Northwest.

Read moreAmerican Airlines Files For Bankruptcy Protection; Incoming CEO Says Flights May Be Cut