During his weekly video address, Senator Chuck Grassley discusses revelations made during the Senate Agriculture Committee hearing regarding the MF Global collapse in which up to $1.2 billion in customer funds was lost - including money from Iowa farmers and brokers.
Click here for audio.
Here is the text of the address:
This week's oversight hearing in the Senate Agriculture Committee on the MF Global collapse yielded some revelations on what happened and who knew what when.
An executive of a financial exchange that oversees MF Global testified that the former head of the firm may have known the firm was using customer funds to make a $175 million loan to a European affiliate. This statement from the head of the CME Group struck another senator on the Agriculture Committee as a "bomb."
It strikes me as a bombshell, too, because just minutes before, Mr. Jon Corzine continued to express his lack of understanding of how MF Global lost up to $1.2 billion in customer funds - including money from Iowa farmers and brokers.
The revelation wasn't in any prepared testimony. It came in response to senators' questions.
It goes to show that congressional oversight yields results.
Those responsible can and should be brought to account, whether it's firms playing fast and loose with customer money in violation of the law or the regulators who are supposed to stop malfeasance.
-30-
