Peter Schiff (like him or not) interviews Ann Barnhardt

Barnhardt: MF Bankruptcy ILLEGALLY Filed As "Securities Firm" To Give JP-Morgan Priority Status

(((Watch Video Interview Here))) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18A698QQex0&feature=player_embedded#!

http://ml-implode.com/staticnews/2011-12-22_BarnhardtMFBankruptcyIllegallyFiledAsSecuritiesFirmToGiveJPMorga.html

-Dec 21, 2011-

---

The Systemic Risk revealed by MF Global’s Collapse

http://www.washingtonpost.com/the-systemic-risk-revealed-by-mf-globals-collapse/2011/12/14/gIQAtrTI1O_story.html

--Barry Ritholtz December 17th, 2011--

Watching the MF Global saga unfold, I had to wonder: “How was it possible for a broker dealer to tap segregated client monies to speculate in risky assets and lose billions?”

MF Global’s story, as you will soon understand it, raises serious concerns for any investor. That the activities that led to MF Global’s collapse were possibly legal (!) is stunning. The details are complex, but follow them through to the end and you will see all of the problems of our system — political corruption, excess leverage, focus on short-term profit at the expense of survival — in one sordid affair.

The MF Global story contains six elements that I found astonishing:

• (1.) What MF Global did with client monies was “technically” legal (though it probably violated the spirit of the law).

• (2.) Britain’s leverage loopholes provided a back door for U.S. firms such as Lehman Brothers and MF Global to “re-hypothecate” client assets — and leverage up.

• (3.) As a result of MF Global’s lobbying, key rules were deregulated. This allowed the firm to use client money to buy risky sovereign debt.

• (4.) In 2010, someone from the Commodities Futures Trading Commission recognized these prior deregulations had dramatically ramped clients’ exposure to risk and proposed changing those rules. Jon Corzine, MF Global’s chief executive, successfully prevented the tightening of these regulations. Had the regulations been tightened, it would have prevented the kind of bets that lost MF Global’s segregated client monies.

• (5.) None of MF Global’s Canadian clients lost any money thanks to tighter regulations there.

• (6.) Little noticed in this affair is (once again) the gross incompetency of the ratings agencies. Had they not been maintaining “A” ratings on Spain and Italy, MF Global could not have made its disastrous bets there.

First, let me explain hypothecation. The classic example of this occurs when you take a mortgage to buy a house. You are pledging collateral (the house) to secure a debt (the mortgage). Your collateral is “hypothetically” controlled by the bank, as the lender has the right to take possession if you default on your mortgage payments....

(((Continue Reading this article Here))) http://www.washingtonpost.com/the-systemic-risk-revealed-by-mf-globals-collapse/2011/12/14/gIQAtrTI1O_story.html

---

This Is How The COMEX Crumbles

An Interview with Ann Barnhardt: "Monumental Market Disorder?"

(((Audio))) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPPxOP3na5o&feature=player_embedded

-December 16, 2011-

Warren Pollock interviews Ann Barnhardt of Barnhardt Capital Management. Ann shut the doors of her brokerage because she felt customer capital was no longer safe.

Ann gives us her opinions on the stability and conduct of markets, regulators, potential for systems and currency collapse, the failure of regulators, and on gold & silver.

Other cutting topics not previously covered include the need to barter as the system fails and the mathematical impossibility of correcting the over-leveraged financial mess now coming to conclusion thereby creating a future full of "monumental market disorder."

---

( ( ( f l a s h b a c k ) ) )

"The Entire System Has Been Utterly Destroyed By The MF Global Collapse" - Presenting The First MF Global Casualty

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/entire-system-has-been-utterly-destroyed-mf-global-collapse-presenting-first-mf-global-casualty

-11/17/2011-

(Presented without comment, merely to confirm that the market as we know it, no longer exists.)

BCM Has Ceased Operations

(source) http://barnhardt.biz/

Posted by Ann Barnhardt -11/17/2011-

Dear Clients, Industry Colleagues and Friends of Barnhardt Capital Management,

It is with regret and unflinching moral certainty that I announce that Barnhardt Capital Management has ceased operations. After six years of operating as an independent introducing brokerage, and eight years of employment as a broker before that, I found myself, this morning, for the first time since I was 20 years old, watching the futures and options markets open not as a participant, but as a mere spectator.

The reason for my decision to pull the plug was excruciatingly simple: 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... The futures and options markets are no longer viable. It is my recommendation that ALL customers withdraw from all of the markets as soon as possible so that they have the best chance of protecting themselves and their equity.

The system is no longer functioning with integrity and is suicidally risk-laden. The rule of law is non-existent, instead replaced with godless, criminal political cronyism...Finally, I will not, under any circumstance, consider reforming and re-opening Barnhardt Capital Management, or any other iteration of a brokerage business, until Barack Obama has been removed from office AND the government of the United States has been sufficiently reformed and repopulated so as to engender my total and complete confidence in the government, its adherence to and enforcement of the rule of law, and in its competent and just regulatory oversight of any commodities markets that may reform. So long as the government remains criminal, it would serve no purpose whatsoever to attempt to rebuild the futures industry or my firm, because in a lawless environment, the same thievery and fraud would simply happen again, and the criminals would go unpunished, sheltered by the criminal oligarchy.

To my clients, who literally TO THE MAN agreed with my assessment of the situation, and were relieved to be exiting the markets, and many whom I now suspect stayed in the markets as long as they did only out of personal loyalty to me, I can only say thank you for the honor and pleasure of serving you over these last years, with some of my clients having been with me for over twelve years. I will continue to blog at Barnhardt.biz, which will be subtly re-skinned soon, and will continue my cattle marketing consultation business. I will still be here in the office, answering my phones, with the same phone numbers. Alas, my retirement came a few years earlier than I had anticipated, but there was no possible way to continue given the inevitability of the collapse of the global financial markets, the overthrow of our government, and the resulting collapse in the rule of law.

As for me, I can only echo the words of David:

“This is the Lord’s doing; and it is wonderful in our eyes.”

With Best Regards- Ann Barnhardt

Read the entire thing Here:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/entire-system-has-been-utterly-destroyed-mf-global-collapse-presenting-first-mf-global-casualty

---