PFG freezes accounts, CEO attempts suicide

Quote from zboy2854A:

Stop being an ignoramus. Far more American investors have gotten hurt in this than foreign ones. Should we Americans stop trading American markets as well?

This has nothing to do with "due diligence", this isn't how "the business works". This was FRAUD that the regulatory entities were supposed to be on the job to prevent. No amount of private investor "due diligence" would have alerted you to the fact that the guy running the brokerage your money is with was forging documents and stealing money.

So please shut up if you don't understand what actually happened here. Thank you.

For some comparison about the S&L crisis versus the crisis today I like the comments of William Black.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8CqaHTygSc

In 2007? he came to Calgary to talk about corruption and regulatory capture and law. It was an excellent talk. I bought a copy of his book "the only way to rob a bank is to own one".

Some research and some thinking convinced me that financial markets are corrupt worldwide now and most have no idea how deep the rabbit hole goes. Along with the money system, all of the corruption will need to be reset as well I think. Until the culprits are finally punished, there are actually two world-wide crises - one of finances, and one of morality. The second is by far the bigger issue in my view.
 
Quote from brocklanders:

.......

Also, the towards the end, NFA was "asking" Wasendorf to "allow" them to check the balances electronically. Does this make any sense at all? Were they just doing a CYA after it was plainly clear he was a fraud all along? Why would the NFA need to ask to verify an account balance electronically anyway. Incredible.

There is another way to read this comment that would be just scary.

If the NFA KNEW he was in deficit after their audit after the MF global affair, perhaps they were supporting him until he corrected the problem. However, if their bosses were forcing electronic verification on them this year (to prevent terrorism and crime) they would have had to pull the plug sometime. Would they rather take the heat on not knowing or on supporting him while trying to rectify the problem?

I am sure that this senario can't be true. The question then would be, are their others out there right now ready to explode at any time?
 
Quote from logic_man:

The way I read that was the NFA was transitioning from a manual system used by all the companies they regulate to an electronic system for all the companies. As they rolled it out, they had to get approval from each company because of legal issues with the NFA just showing up at someone's bank demanding information about their accounts without an approval letter of some kind. PFG was withholding approval, for obvious reasons.

That's just my take, though, and I don't know that for sure, although it seems to make sense. The NFA had one system with an exploitable loophole in place. Only this one guy (so far as we know) was actually exploiting the loophole. When the NFA asks everyone to move over to a system without the loophole, everyone but this one guy agrees. Because the NFA can't force the issue, it raises a red flag. The guy finally relents to the change and tries to kill himself because he knows the game is up.

Make sense?

If this is how it played out, the question is whether there are any other FCMs who resisted this system change and what is their current status?

For an even deeper rabbit hole scenario (that couldn't have really happened) , read my previous post.
 
MF and PFG would have been much less severe if a lazy auditing accountant could just pick up a phone and call the custodial banker directly in order to verify the FCM's reported figures.

Our industry is going down the tubes because every freaking auditor is lazy and apparently inept and incompetent it would appear.

That freaking simple.

Call the bank - don't take figures at face value from the regulated entity who is the subject of the audit.
 
Quote from bone:

MF and PFG would have been much less severe if a lazy auditing accountant could just pick up a phone and call the custodial banker directly in order to verify the FCM's reported figures.

Our industry is going down the tubes because every freaking auditor is lazy and apparently inept and incompetent it would appear.

That freaking simple.

Call the bank - don't take figures at face value from the regulated entity who is the subject of the audit.
Those who do the auditing are there for a reason, to do poor auditing. This is the system they want in place for our current environment, sorry but that is the facts.

Protect your account capital as best you can and good luck!
 
Quote from bone:

MF and PFG would have been much less severe if a lazy auditing accountant could just pick up a phone and call the custodial banker directly in order to verify the FCM's reported figures.

Our industry is going down the tubes because every freaking auditor is lazy and apparently inept and incompetent it would appear.

That freaking simple.

Call the bank - don't take figures at face value from the regulated entity who is the subject of the audit.

Well if the FCM pinky swore the numbers were accurate I guess the auditor had no choice but to give approval. If only he would have checked their other hand to see if their fingers were crossed..
 
Quote from brocklanders:

Better grab your PFGBest SpongeBob limited edition set before they are all gone... they are not making anymore of these you know!! Only $259 for 4oz of Silver (2x the market price) and a toy treasure chest but who's counting...

http://spongebobcoins.com/

Do they still have any Russ Wassendorf bobbleheads left?

Please advise.

Thanks
 
I just noticed that Robbins, owned by PGFBest, are continuing to update the World Trading Championship as at 7/10/2012.

Doesn't all this crap effect them?:confused:
 
One of my very intelligent clients appeared on Fox Business News yesterday afternoon and was interviewed by Liz Claiborne about his PFG account. He explained that after the MF debacle, he had wisely opened several futures accounts in order to spread his risk out. When she asked how much he lost ( with headlights like that, you apparently can get away with such a line of questioning ) he demurred that while the loss stings, it would not alter his trading or his family's quality of life.

He is the only client I know of who cleared PFG; unfortunately, I have several clients who cleared MF ( two of them are CTA's ).
 
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