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Jon
Corzine’s biography currently consists of two chapters. The first
chapter is entitled “Achieving the American Dream.” The second
chapter is entitled “How Fast and Far the Mighty Fall.”
Some of the highlights from the first chapter:
·
Growing up on a small family farm in central Illinois, Jon Corzine
was quarterback of the town’s high school football team and captain
of its basketball team.
·
Following graduation from the University of Illinois
Champaign-Urbana and having earned recognition as a Phi Beta Kappa,
Corzine attended the University of Chicago’s prestigious Booth
School of Business and graduated with an MBA.
·
Enlisting in the United States Marine Corps Reserve, Corzine served
for six years, attaining the rank of Sergeant.
·
Working as a banking executive until being hired as a bond trader
for Goldman Sachs and, then, working his way up the corporate ladder
to Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, Corzine successfully, albeit
controversially, converted the investment firm from a private
partnership to a publicly-traded company and turned the money-losing
corporation nearing collapse into a money-making machine. Upon his
departure from Goldman Sachs, Corzine was given a $400 million
dollar severance package.
·
After
one term as one of New Jersey’s
two
U.S.
Senator and one term as Governor of the State of New Jersey, Corzine
returned to Wall Street, being appointed Chairman and CEO of MF
Global, a multinational futures broker and bond dealer. He also was
made a partner at J.C. Flowers & Company, a private equity partner
whose CEO—a friend of Corzine’s from his days at Goldman
Sachs—invested $300 million into MF Global when Corzine took over.
“What good can come from a family farm in Willey Station,
Illinois?”, some might once have asked of Jon Corzine. His rise in
American society is the stuff of the American dream, no? (Don’t
know where Willey Station, Illinois is? It’s right near
Taylorville, Illinois.)
Entrusted by God with a tremendous number of talents, Jon Corzine
used them and built on them to become not only a successful
businessman, but also a civic leader as a United States Senator and
Governor of the State of New Jersey.
How many young people today dream of achieving those heights of
wealth and power?
But, how fast and far the mighty fall!
Some of the details from second chapter of Jon Corzine’s biography:
·
In
late-October 2011, MF Global’s stock price dropped 67%, reducing its
debt to the status of junk bonds.
·
On
October 31, 2011, trading of MF Global shares on the New York Stock
Exchange was halted. The company later declared itself in Chapter
11 bankruptcy.
·
Federal regulators are investigating what amounted to hundreds of
millions of dollars missing in customer accounts.
·
Five
days later, Jon Corzine resigned as MF Global’s
Chairman and CEO, having retained the services of a high-powered
defense attorney. He also somewhat mysteriously turned down a
severance package worth $12.1 million dollars.
·
Reuters has reported that J.C. Flowers is pressuring Corzine to
resign.
·
On
November 11, 2011, MF Global’s 1,066 broker-dealer employees were
informed that they were fired. Their last paycheck will be November
15, 2011. 200 of those former employees will be rehired to
liquidate the firm to return whatever assets can be recovered to
customers under the guidance of a bankruptcy trustee. Then, those
200 are also “out on the street.”
Talents. Doubling those talents. And then, “hitting the wall.”
The controversy surrounding Corzine’s resignation at MF Global has
made him a pariah among his former associates.
However, all along the way, there were some signs that Jon Corzine
was doubling down on all of the wrong talents:
·
Early
in his tenure as Goldman Sachs’ Chairman and CEO, the firm posted
big losses due to some risky bets that Corzine had backed. He was
eventually forced from office by Hank Paulson, who later became the
Secretary of the Treasury in the George W. Bush administration.
·
At MF
Capital, Corzine pushed the company to use its money to make big
bets on the highly risky sovereign debt of the European nations.
When the bets were disclosed and with the European economy
appearing to be sliding nearer the precipice of disaster, MF Capital
trading partners and shareholders closed their accounts, creating a
serious cash flow problem that ultimately led to the firm’s demise.
Sounds like the stuff of a Bernie Madoff-like ponzey scheme, no?
·
Then,
too, after 33 years of marriage to his high school sweetheart and
during his successful campaign for Governor of the State of New
Jersey, Jon Corzine separated from and divorced his wife. She told
the New York Times that “he let his family down, and he’ll
probably let New Jersey down, too.”
How fast and far the mighty fall!
Contrast Jon Corzine’s biography with today’s gospel which relates
Jesus’ parable of the talents. It actually bespeaks a “spirituality
of work” and how each of us can participate with God in making
fruitful the created world that God has entrusted to us.
In
the parable of the talents, the first two stewards multiplied their
talents. They were what we’d call “shrewd operators.” They know how
to play the market and what risks to take in order to earn a decent
return on their investment. And Jesus praised them for their energy
and perseverance in making nothing short of a 200% profit.
The lazy steward seems to be an upright, honest fellow who was
trying to be “conservative,” “cautious,” or “careful” with his
master’s money. Evidently, this slave lived in fear of his master,
who demanded results and didn’t suffer fools kindly. So, to avoid
losing those talents by engaging in risk taking, potentially having
to overcome and figure his way out of obstacles, and having to bear
personal responsibility should he lose those talents, this slave
decided to bury them.
“Playing it safe,” this slave adopted what was, at the time,
considered the best strategy that provided the best security against
theft or loss.
Yet, Jesus condemns this slave for doing nothing with his talents.
Why?
This slave refused to take a calculated risk, by allowing his fear
of stepping out into the unknown to constrain his decision-making
process. In the end, this slave’s desire to “play it safe” is what
caused him to lose everything. The implication is that if this slave
had not been imprisoned by his fear, he may have received much more
in return.
As Chaucer noted in the 13th
century: “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
In
his book, Entrepreneurship in the Catholic Tradition, Anthony
G. Percy examines the development of the Church’s thinking about
work and risk-taking entrepreneurs. Starting from the fact that
every human being must work, as this is described in the Book of
Genesis, through the Church Fathers, and in the papal social
encyclicals of past century, Percy’s focuses his analysis upon the
person of the entrepreneur.
Contrary to what many may think, the Church has long held a deep
appreciation for the entrepreneur...and not for the reason that they
have plenty of money to donate to the Church! Even though scripture
does condemn the love of money as well as avarice in more than a few
places, both the Old and New Testaments contain more than a few
positive references to work as well as how, through their work,
human beings can participate with God in making fruitful the world
God has created and entrusted to them “to rule.”
The lesson from scripture is clear: Like other human beings, the
entrepreneur must use one’s talents to rule nature in such a way
that one’s work contributes to the flourishing of the common good.
St. Thomas Aquinas concurred with this notion, arguing that the
entrepreneur—possessing a number of virtues—must, in particular, be
creative, enjoy relating with others, and exercise moderation in
one’s love of money. Aquinas believed there is nothing wrong with
earning a just return on one’s investment—in today’s gospel, Jesus
approves of a 200% return on investment—and building capital.
However, when one’s love of earning money and building capital
causes an entrepreneur to lose sight of the fact that everything one
possesses was, in the first place, created by God and is entrusted
by God to the entrepreneur to rule, this person fails to do what God
intends, namely, to use one’s talents not only to achieve a good
return on investment but also to provide for the betterment of
society.
In
this sense, work is both necessary and social, but an entrepreneur
is especially entrusted with directing one’s work toward something
more important, namely, building a community and providing for the
common good. Carried out properly, an entrepreneur’s work is
an excellent way of serving God and achieving personal
sanctification. This is the entrepreneur’s “personal vocation,”
which Pope Pius XII said involves private initiative—developing
one’s talents—as well as creating material well-being for oneself
and others. But, before all else, Pius XII said, an entrepreneur
must possess and be motivated by the ideal of service—love of God
and neighbor—and avoid betraying one’s vocation by focusing solely
on earnings and building capital. This is how the entrepreneur
justifies one’s work: it represents one’s love of God and neighbor
in concrete practice.
Pope John Paul II described three meanings associated with the word
“work”: its objective meaning; its subjective meaning;
and, its spiritual meaning.
Work has an external objective sense, namely, the labor one expends
to create something. In this sense, work is a gift of creation
which implies that the entrepreneur’s creativity is also a gift and
is to be used as God intended. The entrepreneur’s creativity and
resulting wealth-generating activities are not completely “one’s
own.” No, they are a gift of God that God intends to be used
for the purpose of ruling creation, building community, and
providing for the common good.
The subjective meaning of work is how an individual constructs one’s
life as a human being and how this is brought to fulfillment is
through one’s work. In this way, the entrepreneur performs a vital
task by producing goods and services for society. Viewed
subjectively, even though the entrepreneur’s work builds capital,
the entrepreneur must cooperate with others to provide goods and
services for society. The entrepreneur’ unique work, then, involves
cooperating with others to form a community that provides for all of
its members needs. It is this “communion” that reveals how the
entrepreneur is responding to Jesus’ command, “Do this in memory of
me,” and distinguishes the entrepreneur’s personal vocation.
Work is spiritual in the way that Christian entrepreneurs, in
particular, devote themselves to share in the redemptive work of
Jesus Christ. Creativity gives expression to the human spirit and,
in particular, the entrepreneur’s love of God and neighbor that is
made concrete as the entrepreneur dedicates one’s talents for the
benefit of oneself and others through one’s work.
Far from condemning individual initiative and entrepreneurial work,
Jesus’ parable about the talents encourages both. As Anthony Percy
notes in his book, Church teaching builds upon this foundation
reminding us that the entrepreneur’s personal vocation involves
recognizing, first, the dignity of the human person and, second, how
one’s talents must be placed at the service of others. It is this
spirit of responsibility—love of God and neighbor as the
entrepreneur loves oneself—that makes it possible for the
entrepreneur to participate in the salvific mission of Jesus Christ
by providing others the opportunity to experience the foretaste and
the promise of God’s kingdom where everyone’s needs are met.
That is why an entrepreneur must not “play it safe,” as the third
slave did in today’s gospel. Instead, the entrepreneur must be
industrious, reliable, and creative in making those wise investments
is such a way that one’s talents grow and mature so that, like
Jesus, the entrepreneur not only risks but gives one’s entire life
for the good of the many.
The parable of the talents stresses the inner disposition that is
necessary to accept and develop the talents that God has entrusted
to human beings. Fear paralyzes human beings who, in turn, do not
produce any return on investment. What’s needed is for human
beings to risk being creative and social in the sense of developing
their talents by sharing them with others for the benefit of all.
This is what might be called the “entrepreneurial spirit” that God
has breathed into every human being. It’s not a matter of either
the 1% or the 99%, as the Occupy Wall Streeters claim. No, it’s a
matter of the 100% and what each human being does with the talents
that God has entrusted to each of them.
In
light of these reflections, there is a third chapter that may yet be
written for Jon Corzine’s biography. Having publicly accepted much
of the blame for MF Global’s demise, will Jon Corzine now grow and
develop the talents God has entrusted to him by sharing them with
others for the benefit of all? And, then too, what about each
and every one of us?
A
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HOMILY
