Still waiting

Covering for Corzine

It has been a year since trading firm MF Global — run by ex-Goldman Sachs CEO and Democratic New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine — collapsed, taking $1.6 billion in client funds with it.

Which raises interesting questions:

* Why has there been so little movement in the criminal probe of the collapse? Even Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana says, “People need to go to jail” — yet no one’s been charged or appears likely to be.

* How is it that Corzine seems to have gotten away with personally lobbying regulators to permit a strategy that led to the collapse — i.e., borrowing money from customer accounts to fund trading?

The lack of oversight — and the subsequent slow investigation — couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that Corzine has so many friends in high places, could it?

Or that he was a top campaign donation “bundler” for President Obama’s re-election effort, even after his own personal contributions were returned.

* Speaking of Corzine’s friends, is it any wonder the Obama administration turned out so clueless with respect to the economy, considering whom they trusted for counsel?

That’s right: Campaigning for then-Gov. Corzine’s re-election in 2009, Vice President Joe Biden boasted that, upon winning the White House the year before, he and President-elect Obama sought key advice from the Garden State gov.

Said Biden: “I literally picked up the phone and called Jon Corzine, and said, ‘Jon, what do you think we should do’ ” to deal with the financial crisis?”

Whatever Corzine’s answer, it seems to have worked about as well as MF Global.

How lucky New Jersey residents are thattheydidn’t listen to Biden. Instead, voters booted Corzine in favor of Chris Christie, who’s now doing his darnedest to restore fiscal soundness to the state.

Indeed, considering how the former governor ran the state, and then MF Global, into the ground, does anyone wonder how well Corzine might have handled the Sandy aftermath. Better Jersey never finds out.