17 Nov 2011

"The Entire System Has Been Utterly Destroyed By The MF Global Collapse"

Presenting The First MF Global Casualty:

Tyler Durden's picture
Submitted by Tyler Durden Presented without comment, merely to confirm that the market as we know it, no longer exists.
BCM Has Ceased Operations (source)
Posted by Ann Barnhardt - November 17, AD 2011 10:27 AM MST
Dear Clients, Industry Colleagues and Friends of Barnhardt Capital Management,
It is with regret and unflinching moral certainty that I announce that Barnhardt Capital Management has ceased operations. After six years of operating as an independent introducing brokerage, and eight years of employment as a broker before that, I found myself, this morning, for the first time since I was 20 years old, watching the futures and options markets open not as a participant, but as a mere spectator.
The reason for my decision to pull the plug was excruciatingly simple: I could no longer tell my clients that their monies and positions were safe in the futures and options markets – because they are not. And this goes not just for my clients, but for every futures and options account in the United States. The entire system has been utterly destroyed by the MF Global collapse. Given this sad reality, I could not in good conscience take one more step as a commodity broker, soliciting trades that I knew were unsafe or holding funds that I knew to be in jeopardy.
The futures markets are very highly-leveraged and thus require an exceptionally firm base upon which to function. That base was the sacrosanct segregation of customer funds from clearing firm capital, with additional emergency financial backing provided by the exchanges themselves. Up until a few weeks ago, that base existed, and had worked flawlessly. Firms came and went, with some imploding in spectacular fashion. Whenever a firm failure happened, the customer funds were intact and the exchanges would step in to backstop everything and keep customers 100% liquid – even as their clearing firm collapsed and was quickly replaced by another firm within the system.
Everything changed just a few short weeks ago. A firm, led by a crony of the Obama regime, stole all of the non-margined cash held by customers of his firm. Let’s not sugar-coat this or make this crime seem “complex” and “abstract” by drowning ourselves in six-dollar words and uber-technical jargon. Jon Corzine STOLE the customer cash at MF Global. Knowing Jon Corzine, and knowing the abject lawlessness and contempt for humanity of the Marxist Obama regime and its cronies, this is not really a surprise. What was a surprise was the reaction of the exchanges and regulators. Their reaction has been to take a bad situation and make it orders of magnitude worse. Specifically, they froze customers out of their accounts WHILE THE MARKETS CONTINUED TO TRADE, refusing to even allow them to liquidate. This is unfathomable. The risk exposure precedent that has been set is completely intolerable and has destroyed the entire industry paradigm. No informed person can continue to engage these markets, and no moral person can continue to broker or facilitate customer engagement in what is now a massive game of Russian Roulette.
I have learned over the last week that MF Global is almost certainly the mere tip of the iceberg. There is massive industry-wide exposure to European sovereign junk debt. While other firms may not be as heavily leveraged as Corzine had MFG leveraged, and it is now thought that MFG’s leverage may have been in excess of 100:1, they are still suicidally leveraged and will likely stand massive, unmeetable collateral calls in the coming days and weeks as Europe inevitably collapses. I now suspect that the reason the Chicago Mercantile Exchange did not immediately step in to backstop the MFG implosion was because they knew and know that if they backstopped MFG, they would then be expected to backstop all of the other firms in the system when the failures began to cascade – and there simply isn’t that much money in the entire system. In short, the problem is a SYSTEMIC problem, not merely isolated to one firm.
Perhaps the most ominous dynamic that I have yet heard of in regards to this mess is that of the risk of potential CLAWBACK actions. For those who do not know, “clawback” is the process by which a bankruptcy trustee is legally permitted to re-seize assets that left a bankrupt entity in the time period immediately preceding the entity’s collapse. So, using the MF Global customers as an example, any funds that were withdrawn from MFG accounts in the run-up to the collapse, either because of suspicions the customer may have had about MFG from, say, watching the company’s bond yields rise sharply, or from purely organic day-to-day withdrawls, the bankruptcy trustee COULD initiate action to “clawback” those funds. As a hedge broker, this makes my blood run cold. Generally, as the markets move in favor of a hedge position and equity builds in a client’s account, that excess equity is sent back to the customer who then uses that equity to offset cash market transactions OR to pay down a revolving line of credit. Even the possibility that a customer could be penalized and additionally raped AGAIN via a clawback action after already having their customer funds stolen is simply villainous. While there has been no open indication of clawback actions being initiated by the MF Global trustee, I have been told that it is a possibility.
And so, to the very unpleasant crux of the matter. The futures and options markets are no longer viable. It is my recommendation that ALL customers withdraw from all of the markets as soon as possible so that they have the best chance of protecting themselves and their equity. The system is no longer functioning with integrity and is suicidally risk-laden. The rule of law is non-existent, instead replaced with godless, criminal political cronyism.
Remember, derivatives contracts are NOT NECESSARY in the commodities markets. The cash commodity itself is the underlying reality and is not dependent on the futures or options markets. Many people seem to have gotten that backwards over the past decades. From Abel the animal husbandman up until the year 1964, there were no cattle futures contracts at all, and no options contracts until 1984, and yet the cash cattle markets got along just fine.
Finally, I will not, under any circumstance, consider reforming and re-opening Barnhardt Capital Management, or any other iteration of a brokerage business, until Barack Obama has been removed from office AND the government of the United States has been sufficiently reformed and repopulated so as to engender my total and complete confidence in the government, its adherence to and enforcement of the rule of law, and in its competent and just regulatory oversight of any commodities markets that may reform. So long as the government remains criminal, it would serve no purpose whatsoever to attempt to rebuild the futures industry or my firm, because in a lawless environment, the same thievery and fraud would simply happen again, and the criminals would go unpunished, sheltered by the criminal oligarchy.
To my clients, who literally TO THE MAN agreed with my assessment of the situation, and were relieved to be exiting the markets, and many whom I now suspect stayed in the markets as long as they did only out of personal loyalty to me, I can only say thank you for the honor and pleasure of serving you over these last years, with some of my clients having been with me for over twelve years. I will continue to blog at Barnhardt.biz, which will be subtly re-skinned soon, and will continue my cattle marketing consultation business. I will still be here in the office, answering my phones, with the same phone numbers. Alas, my retirement came a few years earlier than I had anticipated, but there was no possible way to continue given the inevitability of the collapse of the global financial markets, the overthrow of our government, and the resulting collapse in the rule of law.
As for me, I can only echo the words of David:
“This is the Lord’s doing; and it is wonderful in our eyes.”
With Best Regards- 
Ann Barnhardt

In Debt We Trust - Max Keiser

In the second half of the show, Max Keiser interviews Mike 'Mish' Shedlock about the European debt crisis and the MF Global missing funds crisis.

Greek Crowd Now Amassed In Front Of US Embassy - Live Video


Watch live streaming video from stopcarteltvgr at livestream.com

Europe is FIXED!!!! Via Reuters:
Greek police fired tear gas at black-clad youths on Thursday as thousands marched through Athens to mark a 1973 student uprising against the 1967-1974 military dictatorship and protest bitter austerity measures.

Students and teachers, workers and pensioners marched beating drums and chanting "EU, IMF out" in the first public test for a new national unity government charged with imposing painful tax rises and spending cuts to avert bankruptcy.

The Technocratic Revulsion Begins in Italy

Photos And Video As Thousands Of Italians Protest Monti's "Banker" Government


Well that was quick: Italy is about to be acquainted with the old Asian saying that a "known devil is better then unknown angel", especially when the angel is a Prime and Finance minister (two for the austere price of one) working purely on the behalf of offshore banker interests. As Reuters and Corriere report, thousands of Italians took to the streets in several cities on Thursday to protest against what they called a "bankers' government" led by economist Mario Monti, and there were clashes with police. Students in Italy's financial capital Milan threw firecrackers at police trying to prevent them approaching the Bocconi university, which is chaired by Monti and has become a symbol for the new executive of technocrats he has formed to tackle Italy's debt crisis. Police responded by charging the students with batons. One journalist was injured by a firecracker, police sources said. The students also threw eggs and fake dollar banknotes at the building of the Italian banking association. 

"We don't want the banks to rule" and "Monti's government is not the solution," the students chanted." Well as long as it is only the students who feel this way, all is well. If, however, the anti-Monti sentiment is shared by more, which it is, then the technocratic government will be lucky to survive three weeks... forget 2013. And the greater the revulsion, the bigger the Stockholm Syndrome nostalgia for Berlusconi will be. If we were betting people, we would speculate that Silvio's chances for reelection are soaring with each passing minute. Source





Additional:
Italian protesters clashed with police Thursday as thousands took to the streets around the country in anger at budget cuts and the Brussels-backed “bankers’ government.”The student-led demos came just hours before new Prime Minister Mario Monti, whose government was sworn in on Wednesday, revealed his anti-crisis measures in his first address to parliament.  He is expected to face a confidence vote before the upper house on Thursday night.

As protesters in Rome hoped to march on the Senate while Monti delivered his speech, students in Italy's financial capital Milan battled with baton-wielding police as they headed for Bocconi University, which is chaired by the prime minister.  
Demonstrators in Palermo and Sicily were reported to have thrown stones at police, while others hurled eggs and smoke bombs at a local bank.  
Violence was also reported in Turin, when protesters met police head on as they came up on the city headquarters of the Bank of Italy.  

"Obama is A War President" - Immortal Technique


Government Must Grab Your Genitals - Alex Jones

Alex talks about the global monetary collapse now underway as the criminal bankers move to steal trillions and consolidate their hold over nations and victimize millions of people.

The European Freemasonry Of Goldman Sachs - MediaWatch


MediaWatch is our take on the stories big and bizarre in newspapers, on news websites, blogs and on social media. 

The Silver Bears Are Back, Part 8 + $15,OOO,OOO,OOO,OOOBAMA!

Sovereign debt and USA debt are at its tipping point. They are all sacking the rulers left with the Gold. The writing is on the wall. Paper or an eternity of Gold currency history. You choose. The content in the videos and on the MrSilvergoldsilver channel and www.silvergoldsilver.com are provided for informational purposes only. Use the information found the videos as a starting point for conducting your own research and conduct your own due diligence (DD) BEFORE making any significant investing decisions. 
Additional:

$15,OOO,OOO,OOO,OOOBAMA! - It's Official: Total US Debt Passes $15 Trillion.

Submitted by Tyler DurdenToo sad for commentary, but here is some math: total US debt has increased by 41.5%, or $4.4 trillion, from $10,626,877,048,913 on January 20, to $15,033,607,255,920, under Obama as president.


(as a reminder the most recently updated debt ceiling is $15.194 trillion)

Those damn short sellers.... HARD TALK

Word of the Day: Technocrat



A technocrat is someone who is selected, through a bureaucratic processes, on the basis of specialized knowledge and performance, rather than democratic or popular election. In a technocracy, decision makers would be selected based upon how knowledgeable and skillful they are in their field. 
Angelo: Google Vogon.