Next to the entry under "1%-er" in the English dictionary, no more appropriate example could be found than former Goldman Sachs CEO, U.S. Senator and New Jersey Governor John Corzine, the man at the head of investment firm MF Global when it "made-off" with $1.2 billion in customer deposits.
Regulators suspect that as investors and customers fled MF Global in the last week of October, the firm used some of the customer money for its own needs — violating Wall Street rules that customers’ money be kept separate from the firm’s funds. Much of that money may never return.
. . .
Regulators currently suspect that MF Global — at the time run by Jon S. Corzine, the former Democratic governor of New Jersey — improperly used customer money for its own purposes in the days before filing for Chapter 11 protection on Oct. 31.
. . .
If federal prosecutors determine that MF Global intentionally tapped the customer funds, they could file criminal charges. But in a speech on Monday, David Meister, the C.F.T.C.’s enforcement chief, said that his agency need not show intent.
“You should know the commission takes the laws on segregated funds very seriously,” Mr. Meister said.
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/...
Of course, don't hold your breath on John Corzine facing criminal chargers. Mr. Corzine operates within that rarified elite within the 1% that is essentially "above the law". After all, it was not so long ago that no less than President Obama had this to say in 2009 on behalf of Mr. Corzine campaign for reelection:
"You’ve had an honorable man, a decent man, an honest man, at the helm of this state. … He’s fought for what matters to ordinary folks.”
http://online.wsj.com/...
And if you want to know where at least some of the blame lies for failure of President Obama's economic policies to address unemployment, John Corzine might be a good place to start. As Joe Biden tells it, they'd gathered a few dozen economists in Chicago to talk over the financial crisis. Some were suggesting a bank holiday.
"I literally picked up the phone and called Jon Corzine and said Jon, what do you think we should do," Biden said. "The reason we called Jon is that we knew that he knew about the economy, about world markets, how we had to respond, unlike almost anyone we knew. It was because he had been in the pit -- because he had been in the furnace. And we trusted his judgment."
http://www.theatlantic.com/...