Wasn’t it just a few months ago that President Obama was inveighing against “irresponsible behavior in the financial industry”?
The words come to mind in the wake of yet another report about one of the president’s own close friends on Wall Street, Jon Corzine. This report blames the $2.1 billion collapse of MF Global in 2011 — the eighth-largest corporate bankruptcy in US history — on “negligent conduct” and “a risky business strategy” pursued by Corzine and other top officials at the company.
Corzine, who took charge of MF Global after New Jersey voters kicked him out as governor, turned the firm into a global investment bank, betting the farm on risky European debt. Notwithstanding Europe’s economic turmoil, Corzine was counting on endless bailouts to guarantee that debt. Which is not surprising, because that’s pretty much how Washington works.
But far from using Corzine as a parable of Wall Street-gone-amok, the former governor and CEO turned up as one of the Obama campaign’s top bundlers for his reelection. In the end, Obama returned Corzine’s personal contributions — but the rest of the cash he kept.
Something to think about next time you hear the president sermonizing about Wall Street’s “recklessness and greed.”