Pajamas Media

48 Comments

1. Kirk:

It sounds like the aristocrat version of the Nigerian email scam. The saying “You can’t cheat an honest man” was never more relevant. An honest man would hear about a vague offer that is too good to be true and understand that if the offer was genuine the facts would flow easily. No one had to lie to early Apple or Microsoft investors. They made their bed they can lay in it. Karma.

Was the author trying to make a larger point with the Jewish references?

“Bernie, known as the Jewish T-bill”
“many Jews believed in Bernie Madoff more than they believed in God ”
“Some dismissed the attacks on Bernie as anti-Semitism.”

What information , unprovided, makes these statements relevent? I’m not suggesting anything untoward, but what aspect of the fraud was dependant on Madoffs Jewish heritage?

Dec 26, 2008 - 1:13 am 2. santa:

kirk: in answer to your question – none.

i believe very few US media outlets are making anything of Madoff’s jewishness; its mainly coming from jewish and israeli media, and it’s paranoia, pure and simple.
after so many years of being accused of being behind everything bad that happens in the world, us jews get a little paranoid and end up blaming ourselves before anyone else would dream of thinking about it. it’s as though if we point it out, then maybe we’re disasociating with it, thus making us “good” jews…

but let’s face it, an inordinate number of jews find themselves in the midst of these things simply because there is an inordinate number of jews in the money business (as in the film bizness). why this is so rests on historical factors i could lecture you about, but it’s long and boring and has mainly to do with the fact that for so many of those above mentioned years, jews had nowhere else they were allowed to or could work.

and yes, there’s the sspirit of commune: if a jew invests his money, he will look for someone he thinks he can trust – family, friend, synagogue member. Forget the fact that someone in my family/circle/schul might be as big a crook as someone outside; that demands too much thinking.

Finally, there’s the literary aspect: bloody jew simply sounds better (phonetically) than bloody catholic (too many syllables, alliteration is all wrong), blood protestant (same and moreso), bloody muslim (politically incorrect), blood arab (we’re getting there, but still maybe a tad too british…

Dec 26, 2008 - 2:56 am 3. canuck:

Kirk the answer to your question in Palm Beach is “everything” and you will note the author is probably Jewish. I have seen the term “anti-semitism” used the same way blacks use the n-word for other blacks and the racist, sexist and homophobe used by the left for anyone attacking their ideas. This goes to an innate victimology as a group.

To these folks terms like Jewish T-bill is actually descriptive. When successful, Bernie was part of the “in group” and good old Uncle Bernie was mining it. I don’t suspect he was to be found down at the Evangelical Church trolling for rich Christians. Nor was it likely any non-Jewish investment types were dabbling at the synagogue.

We will hear some other con artist will have preyed on the wealthy Christian crowd. Bernie managed it in New York and Palm Beach…and used his reputation with a few to scam the larger group. He was a word of mouth guy, not a big advertiser. This is the essence of the successful con artist…the victim or dupe always thinks they are being granted a favor by being allowed to get on board the gravy train as a privilege granted only to the elite.

Pyramid schemes always collapse…I am waiting for the carbon offset thing to go down now.

Dec 26, 2008 - 3:27 am 4. Ken Besig:

To be fair, and not to minimize the evil that Bernie Madoff perpetrated on his innocent clients, no one saw any of this meltdown coming either. Sure, there were warning signs that the mortgage/housing bubble was going to burst, but almost no one outside of the financial brokerages really could know the huge extent that the losses would take. Indeed, many of them believed that the mortgage insurance that they had sold would cover their losses. And it is also true that the Big Three auto makers had been selling cars not many wanted, at prices that were way too high, in order to cover massive losses and that no one in their right mind would have suggested six months ago that GM just might go bankrupt. Yes Bernie was a crook and a slime bag, and many of his victims helped him to rob them by either denying the real warning signals that you, Ms. Goldman, managed to discern, but this can also be said regarding the average American investor who depended on the SEC, the ethics and morals of the brokers, and even the American President, the Congress, and the Senate to regulate the investment and mortgage markets, we too participated in the scam, and sadly, we are both picking up the bill, losing most of our investments, or simply bankrupt. There are so many guilty parties in this mess but only Bernie Madoff has a name, an address, and sadly because I am Jewish too, an identified religion. At this point, all I can say is, God help us!

Dec 26, 2008 - 3:48 am 5. Chris:

Madoff’s other business was market-making in stocks. Many view market-making as a ‘license to steal.’ It only makes sense that some of Bernie’s investors must have thought they were getting in on that business. I’m convinced that many of his investors knew he was a thief, they just didn’t know who he was stealing from.

Dec 26, 2008 - 4:06 am 6. Larry J:

How is his Ponzi scheme any different from how the government runs Social Security?

Dec 26, 2008 - 6:14 am 7. R a Z o R:

Strange … I thought he was Mormon !
________________________________________________

Dec 26, 2008 - 6:19 am 8. fear Obama:

“Bernie, known as the Jewish T-bill”
“many Jews believed in Bernie Madoff more than they believed in God ”
“Some dismissed the attacks on Bernie as anti-Semitism.”

They all forgot that he is just a con man. The writer spent just a few minutes of investigation and saved millions of dollars.

He became something that investors wanted him to be.

We now have another man that is something everyone wants him to be.

But now everything is all right. The super rich who lost confidence in George Bush have regained confidence in Barack Obama. That is why everybody will regain confidence once Obama is in.

Farrakhan calls Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama the Messiah. … He says when Obama talks “the Messiah is absolutely speaking.

And on another blog I said:
“Obama is not even in office yet and you sound like our devalued money:
“In God we trust him”

The return comment:

YOU SIR- ARE A RACISTS! Ha.

Where have we heard that before?

Dec 26, 2008 - 6:29 am 9. Percy Dovetonsils:

“…what aspect of the fraud was dependant on Madoff’s Jewish heritage?”

Probably a large amount – in “affinity fraud,” con men frequently target people through their church, where people’s guards are down. “He’s one of us, he’s got to be honest,” is what people think. It happens across all religions and ethnic/social groups; for example, my boss’ Catholic parish saw one of its members draw in several parishioners into a “money market” scam about 15 years ago.

It’s a crime committed frequently enough (although not to this mind-bogglingly extent) that the SEC has publications warning people about it. Madoff’s tale is a cautionary one on several levels for all of us, not the least of which is this one.

Dec 26, 2008 - 6:56 am 10. Bullwinkle:

The reason Madoff’s Jewish heritage is relevant because he was a very big deal in the Jewish community, and much of his fraud took place within that community. Besides individual investors and companies, a large number of Jewish charitable organizations had investments with him, in sums running up to billions of dollars. Those investors previously claiming criticism of Madoff as anti-Semitism would almost certainly be Jewish themselves.

It is very common for hucksters to fleece their own communities to a far greater extent than others; apart from a larger number of contacts, thieves may more easily exploit the trust that is natural among one’s own.

Dec 26, 2008 - 7:04 am 11. Curious:

A question:
Where did the money that Madoff scammed from his clients go? Granted, Madoff lived a lavish life-style with several expensive homes, a yacht, etc. etc. However these things don’t add up to anything close to fifty billion.
What did he do with the money? If it is stashed away in Swiss bank accounts its one thing, but what if the kindly, honest, and generous Madoff gave most or all if away to charity? Most unlikely. But what cries out for an answer is “Where is all the money”?

Dec 26, 2008 - 7:09 am 12. Wellspring:

I think the power of Bernie Madoff was that he wasn’t a mere con man. He was an investor of tremendous, long-standing reputation and credentials. In 2000, when doubts started to be raised, his company was four decades old. He is a former chairman of NASDAQ.

For people who are not professional investors, this seems pretty legit. You don’t expect a man like this to be a con artist. Laura, as a sophisticated professional, did some research, saw some warning signs, and kudos to her for warning her clients. But for most people, I can understand that a multi-decade track record from a man with a sterling reputation will override doubts raised by a small-potatoes competitor. After all, the auditors and government regulators didn’t see anything (and can we fire Chris Cox now?). Gigantic non-profits put their cash in, too. The financial techniques he used were very difficult for a layman to understand.

So this isn’t one of those “what were they thinking?” kind of moments. Some cons, you wonder how anyone could have possibly fallen for them. In this case, I think ordinary investors didn’t have much chance of catching him. The extent of his vicious betrayal, and any co-conspirators he may have had, is still to be determined but I for one am not going to blame the victim here.

BTW, I suggest everyone go up and re-read comment #6. Think about it, think about it really hard.

Dec 26, 2008 - 7:20 am 13. Larry J:

Where did the money that Madoff scammed from his clients go? Granted, Madoff lived a lavish life-style with several expensive homes, a yacht, etc. etc. However these things don’t add up to anything close to fifty billion. What did he do with the money?

From what I understand about his scheme, a lot of the money was used to pay off earlier investors as a lure to get more investors to keep things going.

Dec 26, 2008 - 7:26 am 14. Hecticity:

“Where did the money that Madoff scammed from his clients go?”

Remember this was a pyramid scheme – new money comes in at the bottom from the newest investors, and goes out the top to the oldest investors. So somewhere is a small group of “investors” who got in early and “madoff” with the bulk of the profits. An enterprising journalist would do well to find out who these people are.

Dec 26, 2008 - 7:50 am 15. @Curious:

Curious,
The money went to pay off early investors, which strengthened his reputation and lead to the investment of later investors.

Yeah, maybe he’s got some spare change stashed, but the decades-old house of cards wouldn’t have collapsed if he had the cash to pay off the growing number of investors asking for their cash back at a time when many are taking a bath in other areas (their businesses slumping, other investments failing, etc.).

Ol’ Bernie may have been able to keep it up much longer if we weren’t hitting troubled times all around.

Bernie’s investors included people taking money out of the kitty like the one profiled here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/23/BUIC14TVLC.DTL

Dec 26, 2008 - 7:54 am 16. Mark Epstein:

Madoff is but a symptom of governmental ineptitude. The government aided and abetted his Ponzi Scheme by failing to use the oversight capabilities at their disposal — and the system-wide failure is only exacerbated by unaccountable elected leaders who continue pandering to their large donors (read: bailout recipients). Frankly, enough is enough of these Piggies and Porkers at the trough

Dec 26, 2008 - 8:05 am 17. Lesson learned:

Get rich quick. Another lesson learned for me. Thanks, Bernie!

Dec 26, 2008 - 8:32 am 18. Chuck Pelto:

TO: All
RE: [Slightly OT] Whereas….

…..Phyllis Chesler—who won’t let me comment on her thread—claims the rest of US are judging all the children of Abraham (via Issac) by Madoff, I see Madoff and the people who were stupid enough to fall for his scheme as just members of God’s creation who are so fouled up that rationality is far from them.

As P.T. Barnum put it, so long ago….

A sucker is born every minute.

And someone else put it….

A fool and his money are soon parted.

It looks like Madoff was at least clever enough to combine those two into a system that quickly identified item #1 and applied item #2 to them.

Regards,

Chuck(le)
[If it seems to be too good to be true, it probably isn't.]

Dec 26, 2008 - 9:10 am 19. jaymaster:

RE: “Where did the money go?”

It’s entirely possible that no one really “made off” with the cash. A significant portion of that $50 Billion probably never really existed. It was paper profits, and apparently, a lot of fake paper profits at that.

With the 10-15% “returns”, investors accounts appeared to be doubling every 5-7 years or so. No doubt many investors just sat back and watched their accounts grow, or so they thought. Maybe the amount of “real” assets involved is closer to $10-15 Billion.

From what I’ve read, some investors were extracting regularly from their “profits”. Even in this case, the scheme could go on a long time unnoticed, before it even goes “Ponzi”, so to speak.

For example, say a person invested $1 million, and they expected an annual “profit” payment. For ease of math, let’s go with a simple 10% annual return. The investor could receive an annual $100,000 payment for 10 years from his own principle before that well runs dry. Now, after 10 years, the investor thinks he still has $1 million of principle in his account. But it’s actually zero, so it appears as if he has lost $1 million. Where did his $1 million go? Right back to himself.

Investors (if any) who cashed out completely, both profits and principle, made out well. But I doubt anyone made off with billions.

Dec 26, 2008 - 9:30 am 20. Chuck Pelto:

P.S. If there is ANY ‘racism’ in this fiasco, it’s likely to be on the part of some people who trusted Madoff based on his ethnic background.

So…

….does that make the rest of US ‘racist’ because we had better sense? Or we were ignorant of this ‘get rich quick’ scheme?

Dec 26, 2008 - 9:31 am 21. Curious:

It seems that all of Madoff’s clients were extremely wealthy individuals. You might assume that these people would would be conservative in their choice of investments. For example, if someone with ten million dollars to invest chose to invest in tax-free municipal bonds at,say, 4% annual return would yield $400,000.00 yearly. This equals over $33,000 income per month (tax free). Certainly not chump change. Yet these individuals apparently needed a much higher return in order to be “satisfied”. Because they were unsatisfied they risked their capital with Madoff because of the promise of higher return. This desire for a “higher return” blinded them to the higher risks involved.
The Mishna- Perkei Avos- asks the following question:
“Who is a wealthy man? Answer: He who is satisfied with what he has.

Dec 26, 2008 - 9:46 am 22. Howard Veit:

Was a broker for twenty or so years and early on in my career my assignment within the firm (one that handled ONLY managed accounts) was to examine each trader. I found it relatively easy since the scam artists at that time were sleeze balls with fake trading records. BUT I just don’t think anyone who didn’t do a painstaking look covering at least a year’s worth of trades and fills would doubt Bernie’s competence. I don’t think the fleeced should have known better, and “too good to be true” also stands for the Google offering, the near thirty year record of Exxon stock prices, splits, and earnings, Peter Lynch’s initial success over at Fidelity, Tudor Jones, and so on. Only a person with the connections like you, a person who had “day to day” contacts with the floor of the exchanges had a prayer of spotting this scheme. And a guy with a “Who’s Who” list of clients can’t be a crook, can he? However any regulator with literally unmatched power to comb through records at the exchanges, the accounting firm, and any and all phone records would have caught it within a week. The victims were preyed upon in large part by our faith that regulators would enforce regulations. Nobody at the SEC, CFTC, the Industry “Watchdogs,” and the press, offered proof that Bernie was doing people wrong. BTW, there is no way he picked up $50bln; many investors were paid off, many got redemptions, and not every trade went bad. I think this is like the drug bust where cops claim a $50mln street value for a haul that might be a mil or so at most just so the cops can justify their budget. Good piece. And always remember that the more clever the bad guy is presented to the public the less likely it is that said public will trash the enforcers.

Dec 26, 2008 - 10:48 am 23. Narniaman:

Canuck opined:

“We will hear some other con artist will have preyed on the wealthy Christian crowd.”

It’s already happened; check out:

http://www.spiritwatch.org/fireponzi.htm

which details how some Pentecostal/Charismatic organizations were taken for a considerable chunk of money via another Ponzi scheme.

Dec 26, 2008 - 10:50 am 24. Tex Taylor:

I can’t hardly believe Bernie is alone in his machinations. Since this thread is full of cliches, I’ll add my own:

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Dec 26, 2008 - 11:35 am 25. Charles Curran:

It’s just as W.C.Fields said ” You can’t cheat an honest man, or woman”. If it seems too good to be true, it usually is.

Dec 26, 2008 - 11:55 am 26. Maimonatease:

W.C. Fields correct, as usual. All the golden rules were violated here: too good to be true; trust but verify; etc.

This was pure willful blindness on the part of his investors. Just another version of stick-your-head-in-the-sand-ism. They wanted so badly for it to be true that all the normal alarms were turned off. Frankly, they got what they deserved.

Dec 26, 2008 - 12:26 pm 27. Self-hating Boomer:

#8 has a really interesting point. Jews have not only been conned by Madoff, but by The One, as well. Proving how foolish intelligent, sophisticated and intellectual people can really be. And this won’t be the last time. The most easily fooled people are the ones with the biggest egos.

If American Jews can’t even figure out which side wants to throw their brethren to the Hamas wolves, it’s no surprise that they can be conned by a sweet talking con artist. They were certainly conned by one in this past election.

Dec 26, 2008 - 12:30 pm 28. Wellspring:

One of the powerful lures of Madoff’s scheme was that it wasn’t quite too good to be true. He promised high but not ridiculous returns, but actually pushed his product based on its reliability in good times and bad over a period of decades.

It’s easy to laugh at the victims, but I think that in this particular case, many did appropriate due diligence but were still deceived. How thoroughly have you investigated your investments? I hope you’re all sufficiently diversified. If most of your nest egg is in, say, stock market index mutual funds, have you investigated all the risks associated with that? Not just your paricular broker, but the financial instrument itself?

We can scold the guy whose house is robbed if he left his doors unlocked and open, with valuables in clear view in the window and no alarm system. But many people who take all the reasonable precautions get robbed anyway.

Dec 26, 2008 - 12:41 pm 29. John Moore:

Does anyoone know if this was initially created as a Ponzi scheme, or if Bernie, like many before him, thougHt he had a perpetual motion machine and when it stopped working, started robbing Peter to pay Paul?

Dec 26, 2008 - 12:47 pm 30. keithacita:

hey bring up a chair – carbon credit default swaps – the new card game at goldman

Dec 26, 2008 - 1:34 pm 31. Muawiyah:

“Peter Lynch’s initial success over at Fidelity…” ~ this is a reference to the “Lynch Curve” ~ and that curve wasn’t just nonsense. A comparable curve (actually the same curve) could be constructed using nothing more than the average rate of change of postal mail volume in the United States over the prior 5 year period. Long after Lynch was out of business I used the same curve to assist me in guiding my quite limited investments in my Thrift Savings Account.

I’m not sure exactly what information Lynch used behind his curve, but he could have been using the same material I did ~ simply the Accounting Period volume reports.

They are now reported only Quarterly.

Dec 26, 2008 - 1:38 pm 32. Berlet98:

DID BERNIE MADOFF TAKE HIS CUES FROM HERB SANDLER?

Anyone who remembers the early years of “NBC’s Saturday Night,” later called, “Saturday Night Live,” or “SNL,” with its not-ready-for-prime-time-players, is aware that all subsequent efforts to replicate the original have fallen far short of both its success and its innovative brand of humor.

Of the original cast, the pratfalling Chevy Chase is now washed-up, the insanely riotous John Belushi and Gilda Radner are long dead as is the later arrival but almost as funny, Chris Farley. Such personalities as Dan Aykroyd, Garrett Morris, Laraine Newman, and Bill Murray went on to some limited measures of post-SNL success.

The notoriously-unfunny Al Franken, who always played his schleppy self, went on to host a failed, liberal talk show and is now in process of stealing a United States Senate seat from Republican, Norm Coleman.

With the exception of Franken, the old, improvisational SNL players had at least a modicum of comedic talent as opposed to the newest crew which should be ready for prime time a few months after hell freezes over.

Even after enticing producer Lorne Michaels back to the show some years back, it’s obvious that SNL will never reclaim its former glory, reasons for which include a lack of talent and the fact that SNL is rarely funny anymore since it has subjugated its humor to Big Media’s Political Correctness.

AmericanThinker.com perfectly illustrated the latter in the recent article on the former “Paper of Record” which prints all the news that fits, the soon-to-be-defunct New York Times: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/12/the_new_york_times_finally_get.html.

Some bodacious and foolhardy SNL writer(s)…
(Read the rest of this article at http://genelalor.com/.)

Dec 26, 2008 - 2:12 pm 33. John Schuh:

It does seem likely that Madoff has a Swiss bank account or ther equivalent, or money in real estate under another name. Ofcourse, it maybe that all he wanted was a good lifestyle and a good name in the community.

Dec 26, 2008 - 2:33 pm 34. Pee Wee Herman, Community Organizer:

Hey keithacita – I got some super trichloromethane credit future puts. Only $5000/lb. Genuine DuPont TCE credits from Paducah, KY. Made in the USA. Get ‘em while you can, cause this’ll all be moving to China shortly.

Dec 26, 2008 - 2:47 pm 35. Wallaby:

Where did the money go? I guess a large percent went directly to IRS as clients were paying taxes on what they thought were taxable returns but were in fact theirs or someone else’s post tax dollars. I don’t understand why this piece of work is not in prison. I guess it’s too difficult to shuffle money around while he is in prison.

Dec 26, 2008 - 2:54 pm 36. thegre8_1:

A sucker born every minute. And the goniff is stuck in his $7 million apartment instead of a red jumpsuit sharing a cell with Bad Bad Leroy Brown.

Dec 26, 2008 - 5:20 pm 37. Ann:

I wonder how many of the analyses and statements being made in the aftermath of the Madoff Mess will also apply, sooner or later down the road a bit, to the multi-trillion dollar money piles being printed and passed around by the Sec/Treasury?

Saw a piece on McNeil News Hour this week that about made you want to cry: some legislator or GAO official was adamantly promoting that they ARE GOING TO get procedures and standards in place to GOVERN THE RELEASE AND TRACKING OF THE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS….which (WHOOPS!) have already been released to banks, etc! And now they have discovered (MUCH to their chagrin, doncha know) that the banks are NOT telling them what they did with it. Those naughty, naughty banks.

This is just so ludicrous. Our leaders (all of them) are apparently complete idiots and liars as well. If you and I tried 5% of this level of crap, we’d be arrested.

Dec 26, 2008 - 5:41 pm 38. Tom Holsinger:

One of the first things I learned with the SEC’s Enforcement Division was that the best con-men mostly give the marks an opportunity to con themselves.

Dec 26, 2008 - 7:22 pm 39. thegre8_1:

The entire government is one big Ponzi scheme. Anybody gives me a carbon footprint I can tell you what I am going to kick with it their @ss.

Dec 26, 2008 - 7:49 pm 40. william (not a prince):

Greedy people are greedy for money, power, or sex. Madoff was sui generis. He was greedy for respectability. He used fraudulent, underhanded means to become a pillar of the community. There are all kinds of tells that warn us against the machinations of the brutish, but how can you guard against someone whose wish is to be considered respectable and benevolent. The first fifty years or so of Madoff’s life he was apparently who he claimed to be for the last 10 or 15 years….Madoff was a reverse Saddam. Given Saddam’s past record, it was hard not to think of him as a despot hell bent on acquiring weapons of mass destruction. Given Madoff’s past record, it was hard not to think of him as a shrewd investor who wished to give back to the community….Here comes a cheap shot: Many of Madoff’s investors were probably sure that Bush was wrong only because of 1) stupidity or 2) willful deceit on Bush’s (not Saddam’s) part….We think people are who they claim to be, particularly if, in the past, they have been who they claim to be….Your neighbor is probably not a serial murderer. If he invites you in for tea, he will probably not murder you and leave your dismembered body buried in the basement. And someone was Jeff Dahmer’s neighbor.

Dec 26, 2008 - 8:15 pm 41. HatlessHessian:

Of course many Jews trusted Bernie. As one with many Jewish friends (and ancestors buried in Jewish cemeteries), I’ve been perplexed at how Jews continually exhibit Stockholm Syndrome on such a grand scale. Too many disregarded warning signs in Germany, and worse yet, many continually empower dictators and Jew-haters like today’s Democratic party. They subscribe to the myth that by supporting their enemy, the enemy won’t hate them… as much.

My Jewish friends need to revisit their political philosophy, especially Kant, Nozick and related authors who refuse to treat human beings as a utilitarian means to an end. That Obama or any other Democrat can support redistribution is a blatant confession that they will commit endless other ethical abuses and crimes as they seek their impossible ends at the expense of human lives. Lacking an ethical framework to prohibit such utilitarian abuse of people, and seeking an impossible goal, they will erode human rights to the greatest extremes as have every previous totalitarian regime. Jews, unfortunately, are on the short list of scapegoats and end up suffering the most.

The solution? Don’t embrace those that would turn your children into living room upholstery and melt your teeth for their gold. Obama’s a pleasant fellow today, but like all populists, has nothing to act as a governor to restrict his absolute behavior when his impossible quest of redistributionist utopia fails.

Dec 26, 2008 - 8:32 pm 42. seven:

We see a number of 50 billion tossed around. That number is incredibly vague also. Is 50 billion the bottom line on statememts after their 10% compounding? I suspect the raw cash put in was not 50 billion.

Dec 27, 2008 - 7:08 am 43. The Historian:

TRIAL LAWYERS AND THE DEMOCRAT PARTY
What this unfit alliance does is all about self-interest, not the national interest:

http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2008/12/lawsuit-abuse-democrat-holy-grail.html

Dec 27, 2008 - 1:04 pm 44. glenn:

Pretty sure I know how this scam worked. Real sure Bernie Madoff is Jewish and that most of his marks are Jewish as well. don’t know what difference that makes and don’t really care. What I also don’t know and would really, really, really like to is who had Bernies’ back. Based on who he gave money to I can guess, but I’d really like to know how years of tips didn’t make for an investigation when somebody turned Bernie in to the SEC .

Dec 27, 2008 - 10:36 pm 45. blank:

Madoff was simply running the third largest Ponzi scheme in history. The largest two are being run by the US government and are known as Social Security and Medicare.

Dec 28, 2008 - 8:03 am 46. AnninCA:

Interesting story, certainly. It surprises me that so many people did not consider the inside auditing as a problem.

Careless investing on the part of many people.

Dec 28, 2008 - 8:05 am 47. Search maven:

Let no one be surprised that greedy people lose a lot of money. The high returns that madoff promised should have tipped of people to his true intentions.

Dec 30, 2008 - 4:26 am 48. Scott E:

As to you kooks who can only respond with “what about the largest ponzi scheme in our nation…social security and medicare?”

Geez, give it a rest. There is time to fix these two issues and neither of these were devised as frauds in the same manner that Mr. Madoff’s scheme.

Your posts are like an old episode of “Beavis and Butthead”.

This is an interesting story inasmuch at it’s core it was based on trust that was promulgated and harvested in a close-knit community. Do we all have close friends or acquaintances that we trust? If someone that you had a sincere respect for their background and personal integrity told you, “this is a good deal you need to be in on,” would most of us be picking through the details of the prospectus?

It’s easy to dismiss this as happening to jews, or anyone other than ourselves. But face it, we could fall prey easier than anyone would like to admit.

Dec 31, 2008 - 3:22 am

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