Corzine's $1.2 Billion Locomotive

This Blog's posting of 20 October 2005 invoked a quotation from the works of the late Robert Benchley, specifically, a sketch entitled "The Lost Locomotive."

I shall reprise that same quotation as anent to Jon Corzine and his MF Global's missing client funds to the turn of $1.2 billion:



The day that Mr. MacGregor lost the locomotive was a confusing one for our accountants. They didn't know whom to charge it to.

"We have an account called 'Alterations,'" said the head accountant (Mr. MacGregor). "We might charge it to that. Losing a locomotive is certainly an alteration in something."

"I am afraid that you are whistling in the dark, Mr. MacGregor," I said quietly.

"The point is not what account we are going to charge the lost locomotive to," I continued. "It is how you happened to lose it."

"I have already told you," he replied, with a touch of asperity, "that I haven't the slightest idea. I was tired and nervous and -- well -- I lost it, that's all!"

"As a matter of fact," he snapped, "I am not at all sure that the locomotive is lost. And, if it is, I am not at all sure that I lost it."

[from Robert Benchley, "My Ten Years in a Quandry," page 1 (Blue Ribbon Books, New York, 1936)]




Substitute Jon Corzine for Mr. MacGregor.


Wishing all a Happy Chanukah or a Merry Xmas, as the case may be.