The decisions that Jon Corzine was held responsible for as CEO of the now-bankrupt MF Global were ones he had been warning against only a bit earlier as New Jersey governor, as Jon Stewart laid out in a series of clips on last night's Daily Show. As an introduction, the host deemed Corzine an embodiment of the tangled web of "the corporate-industrial-government complex."  Stewart then detailed the instances when Corzine spoke in favor of tougher financial regulations, only to be seen in footage of MF Global being reported as doing the same things (risky bets on bad debt, excessive leverage) he spoke out against. The Daily Show host boiled it down even simpler: "Politician Jon Corzine saw Lehman brothers as a cautionary tale, financial firm honcho Corzine saw it as a dare." And when the clip rolled of MF Global losing its bet, Stewart noted: "You bet it all on risky European debt, and surprise, you lost, it's like play roulette and putting all of your money on purple."

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Erik Hayden