An Anticlimax in the MF Global Drama

MF Global's collapse late last October had all the makings of a classic Hollywood film. First was the magnitude: It was the eighth-largest bankruptcy by assets in U.S history. Then, the characters: farmers and small-business owners struggling to make ends meet. The McGuffin: $1.6 billion in missing customer funds. The protagonist: James Koutoulas, president of the Commodity Customer Coalition, who, in another life, would have been played by Jimmy Stewart, heading a coalition of customers determined to be made whole.