accounting has become the means used to high risk and expand leverage in first suit profit accounting watchdog francine mckenna is here to answer that and tell us what can be done about it and is it a sign of the times a bearish indicator we'll talk about the new survivalist reality show or the winner gets a bunker let's get to today's capital account. so we heard from the head of the office of comptroller of the currency on capitol hill today as he testified before a senate panel now the o.c.c. is one of j.p. morgan's main regulators that presumably blew it on catching the london whale trade

despite having sixty five full time regulators on site at j.p. morgan now the o.c.c. is reportedly looking at whether the company provided regulators with adequate information and they're considering whether or not they're going to claw back money paid to the traders and executives responsible for this trading loss but it's a story we've heard before we've heard all this from j.p. morgan to m.f. global and throughout the financial crisis of course too much risk taking hiding that risk expanding leverage too much complicit complicity and wrongdoing with too little oversight so what is going on is this i don't know the ford pinto phenomenon remember the car with the infamous exploding engine you see there crash test found it was faulty but the assembly line was already made and the company found it would cost them less to deal with the liability of settlements than to recall or to repair the cars so is that what we're seeing here with management and traders at

these firms not to mention those who audit them it's just a bigger payoff to go along with and hide a massively risky trade even though it could very well blow up the liability of a lawsuit or whatever the fallout may be will simply cost less want to now but francine mccann is here to help us answer that and and talk about much more of this she is author of the blog read the auditors and a columnist for forbes and american banker and she's known as the accounting watchdog so we are so happy to have you in studio now down with these good well let's get right into this let's start with the m.f. global trustee reports that have come out from both of the trustees james givens who represents customers and louis freeh on behalf of the creditors now. again this report didn't really have any new bombshells i mean i guess it's good that now we know he thinks he can pursue claims against john for a zine and some other executives for negligence and breach of fiduciary duty but the question is where is the customer money one point six billion dollars and still

missing one report i saw someone thought that it could take six years to get it back anything in these reports to indicate where it is. i read the reports i didn't see anything new there were a couple of soundbites liquidity. things like that a lot of people are reporting but in terms of facts in terms of actually who has the customer money we're not hearing anything new and they're not telling us they may have good reasons for that but it's satisfying and as far as. the trustee what else they insinuate about those counter parties which you say are really named there there is some confusion about whether or not the trustee could sue them because of safe harbor provisions could that come into play here well there's always the possibility that they can say with m.f. global in good faith that they were owed the money that they took the margin perhaps. legitimate traits they were owed money the problem is that we don't know

really if that's what the customer money was used for but the customer money was used for a last minute redemptions i saw a number that was larger than anything anybody in chicago i'm from chicago ever said in terms of friday the twenty eighth redemptions hundreds of millions of dollars wire transfer that's just incredible to me so those last minute money transfers and other kinds of transfers we're not really sure if that's legitimate but they can say those other side can say that they got the money you good faith and that makes it very very difficult but we don't know who they are we still don't know who the counter parties were for the report to maturity transactions no one to say no one is saying so it's a big unanswered question let's talk about how those counter parties presumably got customer money to begin with this report talks about some of these differences and regulatory reporting methods the alternative method versus the net liquidating met

they had which were just spewed out and how they could use them which which they kind of shows between and there's also a distinction between how these. regulatory reporting methods apply to us segregated funds versus a is segregated funds a broader foreign security account so could you kind of explain how that all came into play accounting is difficult enough but when you start talking about regulatory reporting in this kind of environment in the futures commission merchant broker dealer it gets very very complicated remember m.f. global was spun out of m a m financial which bought refco this is a firm that's been around for a long time has been under the scrutiny of regulators for a long time so if they thought that they were able to identify how much they had to work with how much customer assets they could use potentially to fund the proprietary trades by using various methods or looking at it in alternative way

looking at intra day versus end of day balances they probably tried to do everything they could in order to squeeze a little bit more out so that they could send money off to london to cover the margin requirements of the. transactions and i think that's what they did it may have been strictly within the confines of either the u.k. or u.s. law the problem is they were on the edge that they went very close to the edge and perhaps over the edge then they came back then they probably went completely off the deep bad by the end of that week before the bankruptcy so is this unquestionably regulatory arbitrage taking advantage of loopholes and regulations that's what it looks like to me i think we saw that they're able to do the multi-step process to take customer assets and customer funds and. proprietary funds or how spawns and then use those how spawns in such a way to potentially pay off margin requirements to pay off for dumb sins or to do

other kinds of transactions with other counter parties that's you know something that's only possible in that we've seen possible another set. because of sending money outside of the united states and getting sort of the chain of custody of those funds and the characterization of who they really belong to a little bit confused or at least getting it to the point where someone is not asking the question what role does london play in this because this is something we see not just in m.f. global but in the sun lehman brothers we've seen in other cases we see it over and over again and if you recall even brothers they're still still waiting for the money. many many are still waiting for their money it's not a very easy situation and some of the same banks of are involved and so the same trust is a good yeah so these are people that know what they're doing they're people that knew what they were doing when the fact that these transactions and now there are people that are trying to find them that have seen these things before the problem

is why haven't the regulators put a stop to with a long time ago well why have they i want to bring up what another analyst said it was quote and capitalism this was. michael mann's and he said the regulators could have shut him down on day one using company accounting to game the regs as compliance one o one step so the regulators can't claim they were bamboozled by the slick ass guy in town is that your inner company accounting is a classic. i think that. it's one of those things where it's very easy to make things confusing and i think we're seeing over and over again that regulators are two four six eight ten steps behind the bankers so what do you do it may be that you have to put the regulations in because there is no way. today that you can actually monitor or watch over it they don't know what they're looking at

so what's the solution it's not more regulation we have plenty of them they're not being enforced i think that they're not being enforced at all i think when you start to see the same things happening over and over again it is interesting comparison because you recall we've heard some comments recently that the f.c.c. might not bring somebody in there actually gives the executives that's the same situation they had regulatory personnel in lehman they knew that it was problematic they had people there it must be very difficult to be a regulator and try to come back later and say we were there we were sitting right next. we may have been having lunch with them and we completely missed it. let's talk about how this bamboozling happens with this repo to maturity trade their response to sarah who was raising the red flag was fired half a year after he expressed concerns regarding liquidity in the republican maturity

portfolio that was back in may of two thousand and ten and then september two thousand and eleven exposure was more than four and a half times and global equity so break down for us how you go from maneuvering a sixteen point five billion dollar debt into treating it as a sale as was done with these repeated maturity trades well reproach of maturity is not some kind of newfangled technique this is something that was global before only using treasuries very very very risky. and so the accounting for it is really pretty straightforward it's established in the same way that the report one of five accounting was established for lehman it's not the accounting it's the disclosure we're not seeing the really full disclosure and we're not seeing that appreciation of what is disclosed. the information that was out there for m.f. global for a long time said that the company was having difficulty they were not making money

there should have been a lot of scrutiny over how they were going to potentially bring back profitability avoid ratings downgrades it doesn't look like there was so so what does this tell us about off balance sheet risk more broadly and what's lurking around out there in the financial system that's not accounted for i think that there's still plenty of opportunity for companies especially the banks to take. liabilities in other kinds of problematic transactions off the balance sheet the problem is that even when they do disclose it's so difficult to understand and we're not focusing in on one of the most salient points was that. they disclose the information about these trades and it was a bit till the wall street journal article came out about a month later that he but he paid attention to it there's something wrong with that picture and it shouldn't be that the regulators get a clue about what's going on from the newspapers either yeah it certainly shouldn't be especially when it's right under their nose and they are working that when we

get back i want to talk about all of this as it applies to j.p. morgan and get to the auditors because by the way i'm a full blown j.p. morgan share the same one we will have much more after the break with francine mckenna author of the blog the auditor. also still ahead survival lists are prepping for more than just the end of the world they're going to be on t.v. we'll give you our three cents on the grand prize a new reality show is offering them but first your closing market numbers. a new.

technology innovation all the developments around. the future however. welcome back we're talking about massive risk taking and the leverage expansion that leads to firms going bankrupt or losing a lot of money stealing from customers in some cases just the right as in it's a systemic only important or did you know detrimental disaster as institution depending on how you look at it in the case of j.p. morgan we're talking to francine mccann as she is the accounting watchdog author of blog the auditors columnist for forbes american bankers she's talking about how this all is allowed to go down and how the regulators are not catching it so one

other factor in here that we haven't touched on yet is the auditors it's hard to imagine that the auditors didn't know what was going on at a firm like m.f. global and they signed off on it well i think we're talking about a global we're talking about j.p. morgan interesting lee they have the same auditor. a house coopers. institution that audit firm has been with j.p. morgan since the sixty's is it necessarily complicity i think it's more complacency long long relationships very lucrative relationships level of comfort with people like jamie diamond who's a very you know savvy person over time i think the auditors become very complacent and they may miss something because they decide they're not going to look that much harder when somebody reassures them or tells them there's nothing they're similar to the regulators and are they held accountable because looking back to enron when you think enron you also thing. the accounting firm anderson that was very much why

you don't hear about the accounting firms anymore really are the auditing firms and i think the accounting firms have got very very good neutral playing switzerland helping with these investigations they're probably working in the background talking to both congressional investigators law enforcement and other investigators but they've done a good job. everyone management that affects these frauds that affects these manipulations and that they're just there to sort of report what tells them if they end up getting duped well. there's not much that they can do about that we didn't know the same thing that everybody says so as far as what management does say let's look at the example of jamie dimon and j.p. morgan we'll see jamie dimon on the hill next week this week they just talked about it with the regulators but he called this the london whale trade and we even heard regulators today say it's too soon to judge whether or not this would have

violated the volcker rule which is supposed to eliminate proprietary trading at federally insured banks but as far as jamie dimon calling it a hedge why don't we look at the language of business as you were telling me is this. officially an accounting well from a. reporting perspective from the q. from the. credit default swaps were not treated with accounting rules they did not qualify. which is why you have losses without a direct. and they use something else in their back pocket that is available for sale securities where they realize and the mitigated the losses that they had but in general those two are not tied together except for now in history. right so do you buy what we said at the top of the show that accounting is used to hide risk

and to. and leverage and not to account for things very efficiently and also that it's a choose your own adventure and you can you can choose to go with the accounting when you want and choose to not look at the accounting when it suits you better absolutely as we were discussing the language business but it shouldn't really be dictating what you're saying about your business and i think too often it's used as a tool when you want to make things look better than you choose something that makes it look better when you want to make something that's good look a little less that you can try to mitigate the counting there's a certain amount of flexibility a certain amount of judgment and that's also the thing that auditors will say is that well our judgment. judgment it's very difficult to second guess that after the fact is this a system that regulations can't control looking because it just seems like there's a way around everything well i'm certainly in favor after the crisis of going back

and simplifying i don't think that federally insured institution should be making proprietary bets in particular when you're talking about the chief investment office of j.p. morgan. you see the auditor should have looked at that and said what's going on here why do we have traders making you the normal amount of money for the bank getting paid an enormous amount of money this is supposed to be a very simple administrative function of investing deposits this is not supposed to be well done will the london based trading operation and so they should have asked questions they should have looked to see what kind of procedures policies controls are in place they would have probably seen that that group was to go wild yeah in order to make profit and as far as punishments whether we see clawbacks in that case or whether we see criminal charges in the case of john corazon or any of these actors that m.f. global that very well look like they stole customer money it looks like there could be criminal fraud charges or at least a case do you think we'll ever see that because you actually said that look. at

another firm at sentinel where we have now seen a criminal indictment but you years later you compared them and you said yeah of course one could get charges just might take a long time son to the was a case that. global one on a much smaller scale they were actually a futures commission broker advisor there was their customer their customer base and when i talked about that in relation to the global bit he said well but there were mistakes and there were errors and there was. customer funds with the house the codes but nobody was ever indicted nobody was ever charged you know these things happen things get sloppy however five six years later now the same do the work of the greed to return some of the money some of global's money and then we came out and they will charge the c.e.o. in the c.f.o. so it's never too late it takes an awful long time we have to have a norm this amount of patience which as you say by the time it happens it may not

be the deterrent as five years from now people may be going yeah i kind of remember m.f. global when really those signs need to be set now arguably we have to leave it there for today i really appreciate you being on the show real pleasure to get your insight on all of this and your expertise that was francine mckenna author of the blog read the article. all right let's wrap up with loose change because if the recent cases of cannibalism in the news have you worried about it zombie apocalypse which we've talked about and economic terms before there is good news for you actor and former saturday night live cast member andy samberg made a p.s.a.

about it. it's important to remember that whatever they look like you shouldn't eat them. i mean the samberg internet personality and spokesman for citizens are not naturally adjusted by american sleep or cannibal. or if you're really worried and you're also worried about some of the other impending issues economically or otherwise this by television network will be airing a new show this fall called the last family on earth is a survivalist show and if you when you get an underground bunker and undisclosed location we're not joking and the reason we bring this up is because dimitri you are an amazing producer but i would understand if you tried out for their show because actually it would be a good fit for you because audience probably doesn't know this but you're bit of a survivalist yourself or why do they think that you're a proper artist and i want to know if you're properly it is true i have a unit and i have one years of the food supply but i won't tell you where it's on

slow vocation but all of a bumper bunker and that's. expensive right so i would love to have one of those things as well as the translation answer to get there if you're an aardvark call me i could do a timeshare maybe sell it isn't cut it but you know maybe we can do. it yeah this is interesting i mean i think is a good idea i don't know sharon sharon was talking about how much she wanted to have a bomb is that right shannon actually i don't want to have a bunker but i will say that there is supposed to be some sort of social media viewership voting that will help decide who the winner of the show is if either of you want to go on the show i think our viewers would help out with you know when it bunker look it's good to have a bunker it's because i mean if you if you can afford it it's great to have a survival strategy because this whole argument that i hear that you are i want you to my word for which was which was if you pago scrubs i don't want to live anywhere sorry doesn't work that way watch the road to see the road ok you'd be better off having a bunker and being somewhere safe you've got to be you know have. very true as well

as. toast so let's move on bidding for more in buffett's charity luncheon is live on e-bay this week it's gone up to a slow start this year reportedly but here's what last year's winner paid. how about lunch for two point three million dollars that's what someone paid for a private lunch with billionaire investor warren buffett but here's the catch buffett will talk about everything except this future stuff. so why are people spending millions of dollars for lunch warm up and they don't even get a stock big come on you got to be kidding right you know what how this works right this is not this is post capitalism and warren buffett was made to be a. spot a kid ok and all of our a ruling elite if you lord our boy remember right right right so this is part of you who loves this primeau does have lunch with me it's a great for the quarter of them called their goodness gracious is that maybe mary's

daughter up to his youngest you know nephews cousins pizza delivery boy and they could have a comfortable life in omaha nebraska or shannon knows why people would shell out that much money to go to lunch with them one guy i think it was like two years ago . warren buffett offered him a job however i don't know if i would be willing to pay as much money as he did in order for warren buffett hire me two million dollars but it had to pass must be higher isn't actually prefer not to have anything if you don't have much wanted to have dinner with some guy to give you a job that's a job that's better let's move on because a new report by the congressional budget office says rising health care costs will continue as a main factor contributing to us debt but we want to remind you because a lot of people are running with this report before you believe anything that c.b.s. says at face value remember what the whistleblower on our show said just last week about whether or not we should be questioning their political motivations as her

experience showed listen to land family she said this on our show last week. so this is a question that i put to the public for them to the congress. and seaview. who it is that this is. that's because she was fired in her view because she wouldn't pay a rosier picture of the housing sector the banking sector then what this cvo wanted or what the wall street advisors wanted so go watch her interview again see a whistleblower land family before you read anything coming out of the cvo and that's it for our show today thank you so much for watching and be sure to come back tomorrow and in the meantime you can follow me on twitter please do at lauren lyster and give us feedback on the show and subscribe at youtube dot com slash capital account c s n h d on hulu and come back tomorrow for another show have a good thanks.

top stories this hour here on r t a new massacre reported in syria however estimates of casualties vary dramatically as the timing of the slaughter just ahead of kofi annan is briefing to the u.n. security council raises suspicions. and the u.n. general assembly has been tackling the situation in syria with some strong statements made as the police chief said president assad has lost all legitimacy while russia insisted they'll be no mandate for syria intervention if the u.n. security council. global political focus shifts to the east where delicate iranian and afghan issues of discussed in beijing it's got to be uprooted meets with the country's leaders. and increased cases of assaults on women in egypt's tahrir square revealed the plight of female protesters whose hopes for democratic change is a fading as business strive to take the grip on power. well that's the way it is here in r.t. at the moment that's it for me and the news team in moscow for the next half an

hour or so as we know head over to washington and the money on the show. welcome to the lone a show we'll get the real headlines with none of the mersey are going to live in washington d.c. now tonight we're going to take a look back at yesterday's elections in wisconsin specifically the recall vote scott walker survived most people would say the election was bought so we're going to host a panel discussing how exactly it is that money influences the votes then kevin joins us to discuss the latest round of motion hearings for bradley manning as well as the southern anger and investigations announced into white house leaks we're going to all of that morphy tonight including a dose of happy hour but first take a look at the mainstream media decided to miss.