steve meyer is president of paragon economics, an agricultural markets analysis firm.formerly served as director of economics for the national pork producers council. and thilo hanemann tracks chinese global investment at the rhodium group, an economic research firm. welcome to you both. thilo hanemann, to you first, why would the chinese be interested in smithfield? >> right. the smithfield-shuanghui transaction is quite representative for a common motive we see for chinese acquisitions in the's which is not primarily to expand spot u.s. market but becoming more competitive in the fast-growing home market. as the clip showed, pork consumption is still growing at very fast rates back in china but there are tremendous problems with the food safety there. by acquiring a company in the u.s., shuanghui hopes to tap spot quality control expertise of that company, transferring some of that back to the chinese infrastructure and using an american household brand name to toicate cater to domestic chinese consumers. >> woodruff: steve meyer, right now, what portion of the world

>> narrator: steve meyers used mf global to trade futures on behalf of scores of farmers and ranchers midwest. >> adm does most things... >> many people cleared through mf global because they were the world's largest. so it gives you some comfort in the fact that you're always going to have that liquidity, you're dealing with somebody that's everywhere in the world. >> narrator: but when corzine took over mf global, the firm was in deep trouble. revenue from commissions wasn't covering expenses. the firm was losing money. >> when corzine first came in, the ratings agencies told him, "look, you stepped into a firm that has a lot of problems. so you don't have unlimited time. the ratings on this firm are fairly low for a firm in its business and the bias is to move them lower." and so that put more pressure on corzine than he would have otherwise faced. >> we're transforming from sort of an old-line brokerage firm into an investment bank. >> narrator: corzine set about cutting costs and replacing old-line traders with more aggressive hires from goldman sachs. >> we want to take and inte

to ron meyer, and steve laser and mercedes schlapp one word, wow! what do you make of this?also, neil, they're checking what books you're reading as well. what is next next, a photo of the children you have to give to them next? seriously this is the worst kind of political core are up shun -- corruption. we've seen both sides of congress coming to together to say this is beyond mismanagement. the president has to take swift action. people have got to be fired. people have to go to jail. this is serious scandal i think is just haunting the president. and what is so unnerving when you have the president saying that he learned this on a news reports, i worked at white house and i got to tell you his advisors are not serving him right if he just found out through listening to the news or watching television. neil: ron, where do you think this is all going? >> well, i think it is incredibly sad. i think it is going to a point, who actually gave these orders to only go after conservative groups? it had to come from somewhere. i doubt it was a few rogue agents. that sun credible s