Corzine's Gamble

As we now see Jon Corzine's firm go belly up with the attendant investigations and potential subpoenas it’s worth noting how corrupted the system has become by the huge amounts of money available on all sides. To those who support the dem party with the fervent belief that things would get better if the damn repubs would just get out of the way, this is reality check time.

Corzine gained favor in political circles by shifting a substantial portion of Goldman’s contributions to the Democratic Party. He rode those investments to power, both in terms of his ability to help Goldman Sachs influence the debate over efforts to remove the restrictions which prohibited banks from using their own funds to make investments, the repeal of Glass-Steagull, as well as his ability to rise in power both as Senator and later as Governor or NJ.

As an elected official Corzine was reliably liberal, supporting universal health care, increased support for pre-school education, taxpayer funding for college, mandatory gun registration, and so forth.

As head of MF Global Corzine bet vast sums of the firms money on derivatives in European bonds. France and Germany in exchange for their willingness to bail out the weaker economies of Europe are demanding that the bond holders take at least part of the hit, something that did not happen in many cases in the US government TARP bailouts. Apparently that demand is sinking Corzine and MF Global.