Aren’t hedges are those big things in our yard that I spend hours trimming every year? And “futures,” “options,” and “derivatives?” – Oh my! Investment lingo makes my eyes glaze over. So I don’t pretend to understand all the intricacies of the markets. But I do know what my gut has been telling me for months: the whole world-wide financial network has really become a flimsy house of cards, built on a foundation of unethical practices and corruption. And it’s fixin’ to come crashing down.
 
Ann Barnhardt is a stalwart, unapologetic conservative. Until this week, she had been diligently running Barnhardt Capital Management, Inc., an independent brokerage company focused on the agricultural community, which she founded in 2006. But with the MF Global meltdown (on Oct. 31st), and subsequent fallout, she’s concluded that the viability of the commodities markets has gone from critical to terminal, and has shuttered her business;

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

 
Here’s the crux of the disaster:

Jon Corzine STOLE the customer cash at MF Global. Knowing Jon Corzine, former NJ governor & FOO (friend of Obama), 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 don’t want to ruin your weekend, but you really should read Barnhardt’s whole Nov. 17th post: BCM Has Ceased Operations. I’m thinking things could get ugly real soon.
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Related:
Apparently the feds are investigating the MF Global collapse – but don’t hold your breath. DOJ is as corrupt as the rest of D.C. despots.