Recently by Cathy Cuthbert: Dismal Futures
To: Martin Glenn, United States Bankruptcy Judge and James W. Giddens, Trustee, SIPA Liquidation of MF Global, Inc.
From: Cathy Cuthbert
RE: MF Global Heist
So, Jimmy and Marty, I've been wondering. Do you two ride horses to work? No, wait a minute, what was I thinking? You're part of the 1%, so you must take a Hansom cab wherever you go. Right? The reason I'm asking is that I suspect you are either Luddites or wholly unaware of the innovations we have these days in the 21st century, so I thought I'd help you out by explaining a bit about modern technology.
I took a look at Jimmy's latest iteration of a claims form for us aggrieved MF Global clients to retrieve our stolen money, and I have to say I was pleased that you edited out the language praising yourself as the indefatigable savior of the downtrodden. However, I was utterly shocked and appalled that a grown-up in the 21st century would have the courage to suggest using a paper form to be snail mailed to clients. Listen, there are these machines called computers and MF Global used to use them to keep track of all the clients' accounts. They are incredibly efficient. At the end of every trading day, the computers calculated our mark to market information. Isn't that amazing? Every day. What will they think of next? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you have control of those computers.
Apparently you don't trust the information in MF Global's books to use it for claims. It's funny how you trusted it to transfer our open positions without sufficient margin, but I suppose you are right not to trust Corzine's accounting. That, however, has nothing to do with the clients' accounts. You might recall that clients' accounts were segregated from house accounts. Contrary to the implications from the MSM, MF Global is accused of stealing our funds, not of messing up their accounting and computers and somehow losing them along with their lunch money. As lawyer and CTA Jame Koutoulas points out:
MF Global used third party statement provider Sungard's GMI accounting software to automate back office accounting of trading and everything else that happens to a commodities account. Every day customers received a GMI generated statement via US mail or email. Commodities customers are trained to check their statements daily and report issues at once. Whether or not MF Global's corporate books were cooked is irrelevant in establishing the legitimacy of customer claims. Almost all you need to do is look at a statement from GMI.
If I have to fill out one of these claims forms, guess where I will get the information? You've got it, my GMI-generated statements. So tell us what the difference is between you downloading the information and us filling out paper forms with the very same information from our statements. As far as I can tell, the difference is about six months.
Gee, I wonder what can happen in six months. Seems like plenty of time for the public to lose interest in the story, for individual clients to run out of money for legal fees and for JP Morgan to wear down everybody with endless motions to the bankruptcy court allowing them to finally, silently slink off with their ill gotten gains.
Gotta tell ya, though, I love the way Jimmy is managing expectations. The amount of "missing" money is growing every day. I imagine this will continue until, OMG, there's NOTHING LEFT! Then magically, our hero trustee will don his cape, wrestle with the database to find 80% of the amount owed and triumphantly return the money to our accounts. Won't we be relieved to have at least something returned, and we'll have the courageous Jimmy Giddens to thank. What a guy.
Marty, these ploys are so obvious that I'm amazed Jimmy wasn't embarrassed to try them. Don't you think it would be best for all concerned if he called it a day? He could gracefully dodge the accusations of conflict of interest while allowing a real trustee to get to work returning our stolen property.
Look at it this way, the Big Banks are going belly up sooner or later anyway, why not help them along? In the process, you'd be giving us a genuinely courageous Marty Glen to thank.
