Jon Corzine, Ex-MF Global's CEO: Where's the Money?
If I were in Jon Corzine's shoes, would I have done the same thing, lose track of extensive assets in MF Global fund? Bad comparison. My background is too middle class, too moralistic, you know the type C personality that stresses out when a penny of someone else's piggy bank money goes missing, the type who is overawed by Benjamin N. Cardozo's judgment in Meinhard v. Salmon,
"That one with fiduciary responsibility is held to something stricter than the morals of the market place. Not honesty alone, but the punctilio of an honor the most sensitive, is then the standard of behavior… the level of conduct for fiduciaries [has] been kept at a level higher than that trodden by the crowd."
I am ashamed to admit that, wimp that I am, I actually believe, in the concept of punctilio of honor. And I think that Corzine, in the position of responsibility he so willingly accepted, should be held to that standard, the punctilio of honor that Cardozo so eloquently wrote about.
I do realize that there has been a reversal. The punctilio of honor standard has been leveled on the "crowd" and lifted from the lofty. And I am one of the crowd being held to a higher standard than the typical investment banker fiduciaries, these days. And from my lowly position, who am I to judge Corzine because of my personality defects listed above? He is beyond me in every conceivable way I can determine. Furthermore and foremost, he is a man. And since the CEO position for corporations and hedge funds and financial groups is predominately peopled by men, I'm just another ignorant petticoat staring up at a glass ceiling.
So I commend Jon Corzine, former U.S. senator and Goldman Sachs chief executive, for his unbelievable honesty when he freely answered questions during a relaxed session of the House Agriculture Committee on Thursday. And after all, he WAS sorry. He did say that "he never intended" to contravene rules that ended up in his having no idea where his client's hundreds of millions of dollars flew to, once the tally was made to belly up MF Global futures brokerage.
Continued on the next page
Follow Technorati