Really? Holy crap is that stupid. http://www.bloomberg.com/video/66619650-corzine-interview-feb-10-on-mf-global.html From 4:00 discusses prop trading at MF.
$350MM; taxes; $130MM in political campaigns; $50MM to MF as an upside call. He's also reportedly made some horrific investments (beyond MF).
Corzine lost more than just money. His legacy was tarnished beyond repair. Maybe not as bad as Madoff but as bad as it gets. Before he came to MF Global, his rep was pretty impeccable, legendary even.
Mentioned in the Frontline piece... wtf would he come on as the CEO of a dink firm like MF? Was the intent to lever his remaining assets through his personal investment in the common (via the Sov bets), or was his degen gambler persona too much for a top bank?
Comparing yourself to Madoff to look good is like comparing yourself to george bush. when I was a kid we compared our leaders to George Washington and Honest Abe.
' He says in the link I posted above that he chose MF Global precisely because it wasn't too big to fail ie he could gamble all he wanted without any regulators because futures accounts are not insured. Even brokerage accounts are insured I think through SIPC.
What differentiates a trader and a gambler is simple, a gambler lets emotion rule the day and totally throws out risk management out the window. A real trader/investor is unemotional, Risk management is #1 all the time, and a trader will cut a loss right a way and call it a day instead of what a gambler would do which would keep doubling down trying to martingale out of losses into a win. You have to learn how to lose before you can win.
Corzine is just as guilty as Madoff. The only reason why Corzine is not in jail yet is because he was a big Democratic Party contributor and has friends in the White House.
From the "American experience" Crash of 1929 Few Americans in 1929 lived like Jesse Livermore, but there was a rising expectation that everyone could have a piece of this prosperity. Jesse Livermore, whose fortune was estimated at over $100 million, never did anything in his life but play the market. Livermore was a speculator, pure and simple. He didnât study the health of a company. He didnât care whether it made a profit or paid a dividend. For him, the stock market was an abstract game of numbers.