You can count on “the absolute dedication” of our company to protect your money. That’s what a futures trading firm in Iowa, PFG Best, said to customers just after MF Global filed for bankruptcy last Fall. Fast forward to July 11. PFG itself was filing for bankruptcy after $200 million of its customers’ money had disappeared.

PFG Best is the latest example of a lot of things that              are wrong with the financial industry and the people who purport to police it.

Its CEO, who said in a suicide note earlier this month (the suicide attempt failed) that he’d been stealing from customers for 20 years, sat on an advisory committee of one of his company’s regulators. In fact, the board of directors of the National Futures Association voted three times to put Russell Wasendorf, Sr. on the committee it consulted with about possible new regulations.

And then there are all the awards that Wasendorf got for his charity and civic-mindedness. Do keep that in mind next time you’re wowed by some business big-shot whose generosity is fueling a few too many press releases. I wrote about the PFG debacle in a column for Dealbreaker.com today. Read article.