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Thread: More 'Skeletons' coming from MF Global Corzine Revalations

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    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default More 'Skeletons' coming from MF Global Corzine Revalations

    from

    (snip)"That paper gold, in the form of electronic ones and zeros, typically used by various gold ETFs, or anything really that is a stock certificate owned by the ubiquitous Cede & Co (read about the DTCC here), is in a worst case scenario immediately null and void as it is, as noted, nothing but ones and zeros on some hard disk that can be formatted with a keystroke, has long been known, and has been the reason why the so called gold bugs have always advocated keeping ultimate wealth safeguards away from any form of counterparty risk. Which in our day and age of infinite monetary interconnections, means virtually every financial entity. After all, just ask Gerald Celente what happened to his so-called gold held at MF Global, or as it is better known now: "General Unsecured Claim", which may or may not receive a pennies on the dollar equitable treatment post liquidation.

    What, however, was less known is that physical gold in the hands of the very same insolvent financial syndicate of daisy-chained underfunded organizations, where the premature (or overdue) end of one now means the end of all, is also just as unsafe, if not more. Which is why we read with great distress a just broken story by Bloomberg according to which HSBC, that other great gold "depository" after JP Morgan (and the custodian of none other than GLD) is suing MG Global "to establish whether he or another person is the rightful owner of gold worth about $850,000 and silver bars underlying contracts between the brokerage and a client."

    The notional amount is irrelevant: it could have been $0.01 or $1 trillion: what is very much relevant however, is whether or not MF Global was rehypothecating (there is that word again), or lending, or repoing, or whatever you want to call it, that one physical asset that it should not have been transferring ownership rights to under any circumstances. Essentially, this is at the heart of the whole commingling situation: was MF Global using rehypothecated client gold to satisfy liabilities? The thought alone should send shivers up the spine of all those gold "bugs" who have been warning about precisely this for years. Because the implications could be staggering.

    Probably the core primary consequence of this discovery, which obviously has a factual basis, or else it would not lead to an actual lawsuit between two "reputable" firms (aka ponzi participants), is whether gold in the GLD warehouse, supervised by HSBC, is truly theirs, or has it all been hypothecated from some other broker who never really had the asset or the liquidity, and so on in what effectively can be an infinite chain of repledging one asset to countless counterparties. Because if there is on cockroach...

    Suffice to say, expect either a prompt settlement in this lawsuit, or a fervent denial by all parties involved that any gold was misplaced. Because here is the punchline: each physical gold or silver bar has a unique deisgnator that should never be replicated, yet this is precisely what happened to lead to the lawsuit! In a non-banana world, there should never be any debate over who owns a given physical asset, as replicated ownership (note - not liens) effectively means someone stole the gold (or there was counterfeiting involved) and was never caught... until MF Global finally expired of course.

    So in other words, is this the eureka moment when everyone realizes that any gold, be it paper or physical, is either a irrelevant electronic binary claim held in some semiconductor, or at best an asset in some vault, that the brokerage next door suddenly also has claims over?

    The end result is that the biggest loser is Joe Sixpack who bought the gold, and decided to keep it in a bank warehouse for "safekeeping" only to realize said gold will never be seen or heard of again.

    From Bloomberg:

    Five gold bars and 15 silver bars underlie eight Comex contracts between the brokerage and client Jason Fane of Ithaca, New York, London-based HSBC said in a court filing yesterday. Both parties have asserted claims to the bars, creating difficulties for HSBC, which is storing them, the bank said, asking a judge to decide who the rightful owner is.

    “HSBC has received conflicting instructions regarding ownership and disposition of the property,” it said. “Accordingly, HSBC is exposed to multiple liabilities with respect to the disposition of the properties.”



    According to Fane’s letter, the five Comex gold contracts are for an average of 99 ounces of gold each.

    Giddens, who is liquidating the brokerage, has transferred about 38,000 commodity accounts to other firms. Three transfers of collateral made and pending will give commodity customers more than $4 billion of their assets, according to court filings.

    The punchline:


    The judge handling the bankruptcy said today he would deal in January with issues about distributing physical goods, such as gold and silver bars, after lawyers for some customers said they couldn’t get their share of the payouts because bars can’t be broken into pieces.


    ...indeed there is a reason why people say gold can not be diluted.

    As for our advice: move any gold out of the LBMA or CME warehouse system immediately. And only treat any GLD investment as a day trading vehicle that can and will be lost the second there is a global liquidity or solvency freeze, because that particular asset will be wiped out as easily as "C:\format C:"

    The brokerage case is Securities Investor Protection Corp. v. MF Global Inc., 11-02790, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan). The parent’s bankruptcy case is MF Global Holdings Ltd., 11-bk-15059, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan). "(snip)


    The potential take-aways from this are obvious and extremely disturbing. While the author's specific area of interest is 'paper gold', the same principle undoubtedly applies to 'paper oil' or 'paper stock shares' or 'paper money' ( i.e. money market funds without FDIC insurance )

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    Default Re: More 'Skeletons' coming from MF Global Corzine Revalations

    There is a saying around the "gold foil" crowd...... If you don't own physical gold..... You may not own gold.
    The country has been looted.

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    Default Re: More 'Skeletons' coming from MF Global Corzine Revalations

    ^^^ and now that seems to have devolved into 'if you don't own physical gold that you can actually hold in your hand ... you may not own gold !"

    Again the larger point is that 're-hypothecation' now potentially puts at risk EVERY form of paper asset that investors 'think' they actually own !!!

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    Default Re: More 'Skeletons' coming from MF Global Corzine Revalations

    I found this extremely 'telling' comparison chart of 'safe paper assets' over at ActingMan. It certainly points out the underlying reasons why re-hypothecation risks have grown exponentially ...





    Obviously the 'private label' repackaged mortgage debt based bonds blew up in 2008. Then Fannie / Freddie repackaged mortgage debt based bonds blew up in 2009. Now the gov't bonds of an increasing number of distressed sovereign European countries are also in blowing up. Each successive blow-up deprived banks of a 'solid' source of capital upon which they could leverage new loans, and arguably 'erased' the actual value that supposedly provided CDS 'insurance' protection they had sold to counterparties. Note the total swing of 8 TRILLION dollars over the course of the last three years. Essentially, that will be the minimum cost of any successful new 'global' bailout effort ... which is obviously unaffordable since it represents some 25-30% of the combined annual GDP of the US plus Western Europe !

    There is even speculation that, as fewer and fewer 'paper assets' still qualify as 'solid' capital, central banks are now starting to pledge their physical gold reserves as one of the very few remaining 'solid' sources of capital ! If true, that has PROFOUND implications.



    ^^^ while Germany emphatically said no, that doesn't mean that other central banks haven't already said yes !

    ~
    Last edited by Melonie; 12-10-2011 at 06:12 AM.

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