MF Global Ignored Warnings, Couldn't Match Shoes

Those interested in the bankruptcy of MF Global—the biggest Wall Street collapse since Lehman—will be fascinated and maybe a little depressed to read the New York Times' look at what went wrong. The big takeaway is that the brokerage company run by Jon Corzine ignored regulators' warnings (or tried to, anyway) that it was getting into deep trouble by betting on European debt without having enough capital on hand. It shows that "three years after the financial crisis, Wall Street executives are still fighting regulators' demands," write the Times' reporters.

The story has all kinds of details:

• Potential bombshell: The exchange where MF Global traded says the company transferred client money last week "in a manner that may have been designed to avoid detection," which the Times points out would be a "serious violation of Wall Street regulations. " (Hundreds of millions are missing, and the FBI is on the case.)
• ... to the mundane: In the frantic final hours of talks to try to land a suitor, exhaustion apparently set in. One MF Global investor (former Goldman exec J. Christopher Flowers) showed up at a meeting wearing two different shoes.

Read the full article here. (More MF Global stories.)