MF Global CEO (and former Goldman Sachs CEO, and former New Jersey CEO) Jon Corzine resigned this morning, which is what you do when your company goes bankrupt. Oh, MF Global went bankrupt earlier this week. We hope you’re getting your breaking financial news from sites that update every day.

Anyway, MF Global found itself in financial hot water after investing a few billion dollars in European sovereign debt, which sounds like a good idea if you’re not the kind of person that keeps up with current events. And not even sweet debt like Germany’s, either. They were heavily (read: leveraged over 80:1) long Portuguese, Italian, Irish, and Spanish debt. You could argue they PIIS-ed their money away.

Except, here’s the thing, it wasn’t all their own money they were PIIS-ing away. You know how most firms have a thing where they don’t use customer money for in-house trading? I think that thing is called a “law” or something. Anyway, MF Global supposedly did not have that thing, and may have somehow managed to misplace a solid $600 million in customer money. So they’ve got that going for them. Also, the SEC is investigating some of MF Global’s traders for insider trading on the firm’s bonds just prior to its downgrade to junk status, but we feel like that’s just dogpiling at this point.

Apparently the whole “might have lost hundreds of millions of customer monies in a stupid gamble that was also illegal” business scared away everyone who might have bought MF Global, so it’s good to see there is still some sense left on Wall Street.

Also, it’s worth noting that Corzine was on everyone’s shortlist for Treasury Secretary as recently as August, so if that doesn’t make you want to hug Timmay, nothing will.

While we in America prepare to stuff our faces, the rest of the world is giving Dubai the stinkeye (and the dollar is continuing to die in a fire, so yeah, even though our markets are closed we’re losing plenty of wealth today, too):

Dubai World, the government investment company burdened by $59 billion of liabilities, roiled markets around the world yesterday by seeking to delay repayment on much of its debt. The dollar’s slump prompted Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii to say Japan’s government is watching currencies “very closely,” while traders said the Swiss central bank sold the franc after it climbed to the highest value against the euro since June.

“Dubai isn’t doing risk appetite any favors at all and the markets remain in a vulnerable state of mind,” said Russell Jones, head of fixed-income and currency research in London at RBC Capital Markets. “We’re still in an environment where we’re vulnerable to financial shocks of any sort and this is one of those.”

Of course, CDS are now spendier against every major emerging market’s sovereign debt, as well. I did find one bright spot for the loller dollar:

Vietnam’s dong, the world’s worst-performing currency, declined to a record low against the dollar after the central bank devalued the currency to curb inflation. South Africa’s rand weakened 2 percent versus the U.S. currency as gold declined. The Turkish lira slumped 2.1 percent against the greenback, and Hungary’s forint lost 1.3 percent per euro.

So how many weird looks do you think I’d get for a USD: IT’S BETTER THAN BUYING DONGS t-shirt?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Surprisingly, the US still gets a AAA sovereign rating from Moody’s despite being in debt for more money than exists and needing to borrow more as time goes on, until things get right many years from now. What’s more, the rating isn’t expected to change for another year and a half. Wish I could get Experian to give me that kind of leeway. “Yeah, we’re gonna go ahead and give you an 850 FICO even though you’ve got a giant mortgage, two car payments, some student loan debt, and you owe nineteen large to Fat Tony.  We’ll check back in eighteen months to see where you’re at then.”

But if our debt load doesn’t stop growing, we are SO getting cut to a AA, which will mean that the US government will only be able to get a line of credit at Family Auto Mart.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds are no longer good enough for Russia’s National Wealth Fund, which did not actually single out those two agencies but instead banned investment in any foreign government agency’s bonds.  The nation’s Reserve Fund has also been cut off from such bonds. Only through hard work and sacrifice will our bonds be worthy of ownership by the motherland!

What Barclays has pulled out of a hat most recently is capital, namely up to £7.3 billion dollars from Qatar and Abu Dhabi that gives the two countries’ sovereign wealth funds a bevy of warrants, short-term convertibles and some reserve-capital instruments with a whopping 14% coupon, and – assuming all is excercised – over 30% of the company.

FT compares this to the deal offered to Barclays by the UK government:

• 10/11 per cent coupon; no warrants

• Existing shareholders would get the chance to buy new stock at an historically depressed price when, according to management, the underlying business is holding up remarkably well.

• Both shareholders and the rest of us would get a full blown prospectus, giving the London market generally some evidence that Barclays’ balance sheet really is as strong as the board insists.

I would like to think their motivation for turning down the deal from Her Majesty’s Treasury is that, you know, Barclays is making a statement that banks should only be nationalized as a last resort, and when private capital is available it should be taken even at extreme expense. You can hardly call giving up a 30% stake in your company “remaining independent,” but at least it’s not bank socialism.

There’s two big ugly problems here though that make Barclays look so much less like a capitalist saint. The UK deal had two thorns: limits on executive comp, and the requirement to issue, as you see above, a full prospectus.

So – is Barclays a champion of the capitalist system? Afraid to show us their books? Or just interested in keeping Bob Diamond on the dole to the tune of an an amount which BBC News refers to as “double figure millions in annual remuneration”? Dunno… I’m just glad I’m not a shareholder.