Bernard Madoff and "the largest fraud in the history of Wall Street"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/12/AR2008121203970.html?hpid=topnews

[/img]http://www.liberty-news.com/cartoons/PonziScheme.gif[img]

which is...
http://www.liberty-news.com/cartoons/PonziScheme.gif

Chuck Asay's economic analysis up to his usual standard I see.

A war in which everyone not directly involved wins.

Meanwhile, the newly poor trust-fund babies now face the prospect of going to the University of Florida in unglamorous Gainesville instead of Harvard or Yale or Stanford. Poor things.

This is kinda lame schadenfreude. I would totally be bummed about going to the University of Florida instead of Harvard.

Not for career reasons, or anything, I'm just not into football and can't hold my liquor

I'd be pissed if someone defrauded me. It's not like being rich means you say "Oh, well I'm relatively well off, so no need to get angry at someone who just bilked me out of huge sums of money."

http://www.vanityfair.com/style/features/2009/04/noel200904?currentPage=1

almost a Great Gatsby-esque short story. I'm morbidly fascinated by Madoff victim (and "victim") stories.

is anyone else as baffled as i am about how much attention madoff is getting? i mean not "baffled"--i get that hes all over the post, daily news, etc, because hes a single, easily-identifiable guy who bilked a lot of influential people out of money and its always fun to have an individual, photographable person to kick around--but do regular people, who arent ny post journalists, or who didnt have money invested w/ madoff, really care? can someone help me see what it is about madoff that makes him evil incarnate in the eyes of ny media?

he represents the mentality that plunged the world into economic ruin. also biggest known fraud in history.

The five attractive daughters are an utterly necessary unnecessary detail in this story.

also biggest known fraud in history.

this is what it comes down to. the stanford guy is also a pretty good villain, but c'mon...only 8 billion???

it just dovetails so perfectly with the financial meltdown. synecdoche.

I love how they found out he'd confessed to a massive fraud and then sent him more money.

well let me take this opportunity to say that i am not particularly interested in mr madoffs scheme

Cue sad trombone.wav: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/fashion/14ruth.html

I'd be pissed if someone defrauded me. It's not like being rich means you say "Oh, well I'm relatively well off, so no need to get angry at someone who just bilked me out of huge sums of money."

― Joe Bob 1 Tooth (Hurting 2), Monday, 26 January 2009 23:56 (4 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I think the point is not that the people were rich, but that the returns were so unrealistically large that they should STFU because of their massive greed got them into problems.

You'd think after four months I could've constructed a more elegant sentence.

The returns weren't all that unrealistically large, they were rather modest, but unrealistically consistent.

When's the sentencing due?

Today! He's being rubbished in court as we type.

In fact:

BREAKING NEWS 11:34 AM ET: Bernard L. Madoff Sentenced to 150 Years in Prison

Basic story up on NYT.

“I’m responsible for a great deal of suffering and pain, I understand that,” Mr. Madoff told the court. “I live in a tormented state now, knowing all of the pain and suffering that I’ve created. I’ve left a legacy of shame, as some of my victims have pointed out, to my family and my grandchildren.”

Addressing his victims seated in the courtroom, he said: “I will turn and face you. I’m sorry. I know that doesn’t help you.”

Putting him away for life isn't going to help them either, but I know there's no other punishment. I'd rather not see him behind bars (he's not a danger to other people like rapists or murderers or drunk drivers are), but more something like "you're going to work in the dealing room of a bank and all the money you make is going to your victims" - you know, something appropriate to the crime itself.

you could easily combine the two

Brilliant! Everybody wins!

shawshank documentary awaits.

150 years, how does that work? Can he get 10 years off for good behavior? Why not just call it life?

don't worry he'll hang himself with a few years.

within

He should be locked up in a solid gold cell filled with gold and no way to spend it.

Like this, but not happy:

http://i42.tinypic.com/29vj8tj.jpg

150 years, how does that work? Can he get 10 years off for good behavior? Why not just call it life?

― StanM, Monday, June 29, 2009 2:00 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark

It's based on non-mandatory guidelines that run according to the number of counts and the amount of money, among other things (this was actually "off the charts" -- the guidelines only go to $400 million). The Judge said he wanted to impose the full guideline amount in part for symbolic reasons even knowing that it didn't matter whether it was 50 or 150.

I was there guys! Only in an overflow room with closed circuit of course.

Oh, also no real time off for good behavior on federal sentences.

There were some choice victim speeches -- I'm surprised I haven't seen a lot of the more fiery quotes in the press yet.

One guy had something about a "fourth mouth of Satan" to chew on Madoff.

Interesting, thanks for explaining! (we don't have anything similar over here and even though it makes sense somehow, it still feels quite strange.)

Yeah, I was having an argument with a co-worker about whether it's silly or not to give sentences of that length.

It makes sense, logically, like the postman who stole 200 letters -> 2 years for every letter = 400 years
But in reality, what's the point? Are they going to keep his corpse in his cell for 360 years before releasing him?

I can't believe he didn't make any trades for 13 years and people didn't notice....

Or do judges get paid per year of sentence they give? :-)

He apparently sent out very detailed false trading statements. And he also ran a legit trading business which was, obviously, making trades.

It's just something that got out of hand a little.

Yeah, the "I thought I'd be able to make it work out" angle is interesting -- seems to come up in quite a lot of ponzi scheme. Even if, in some mentally distorted way, it's sort of true, the activity is so reckless it might as well be completely deliberate. The guy who thinks he can drive just fine doing 100 after seven beers thinks he can make things work out too.

Putting him away for life isn't going to help them either, but I know there's no other punishment. I'd rather not see him behind bars (he's not a danger to other people like rapists or murderers or drunk drivers are), but more something like "you're going to work in the dealing room of a bank and all the money you make is going to your victims" - you know, something appropriate to the crime itself.

― StanM, Monday, June 29, 2009 11:47 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ya, they should definitely make him work with money, in a bank.

ha!

Question (for me, maybe Madoff spoke about this already) remains: was it deliberately set up to be a ponzi scheme - like, he sat down one day, eureka! Ponzi scheme! - or did it turn into one over time?

He should've asked the judge to suspend the sentence, conditional on his promise to willingly serve 300 years in his next life

Why aren't we hearing more about the five attractive daughters?

they married the five chinese brothers

Ah Bernie, you troublemaker.

Madoff's workplace was rife with cocaine, sex

Rife with Renegade Soundwave:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px9VWsSZYP0

(Of course that would just make Dan want to work there even more.)

The complaint includes details of Madoff's drastically different life now in prison. He lives in a cell where he sleeps on the bottom bunk while up top sleeps his 21-year-old cellmate, who is serving time for drug crimes, according to the lawsuit. Madoff's recreational activities consist of walking around the prison track at night, and eating pizza cooked by a convicted child molester, the lawsuit says.

Madoff now spends his time with infamous inmates, the lawsuit says, including Carmine Persico, a former organized-crime former boss, and Jonathan Pollard, a convicted spy for Israel. Many of his fellow inmates are in prison for drug and sex crimes, according to the lawsuit.

Cast the movie.

Or sitcom.

"and eating pizza cooked by a convicted child molester,"

that's a really oddly placed detail

like is it supposed to imply the pizza is molested too?

eating is a recreational activity?

it is in prison

http://hotprisonpals.com/BernieMadoff.htm

be nice when we reach a time when prison rape's not a rich vein of humour for assholes

bernard madoff, free at last.

Great article imo.

“Fuck my victims."

“He told me his side. He took money off of people who were rich and greedy and wanted more,” says Hay, who was released in December. People, in other words, who deserved it.

Only if you count charities among the "rich and greedy"

some parts of the article made me doubt it's accuracy. for instance, this --

But Madoff has never been an intellectual—he has the mentality of “an auto mechanic,” one hedge-fund manager told me. He keeps it simple, and it works

-- might be true, but it's difficult to believe. running an enterprise, even an illusory, criminal enterprise, of that size and scope required intelligence and savvy.

not trying to demean auto mechanics, btw. i'm referring to the underlying, obvious inference of the hedge-fund manager.

I think you can distinguish intellectualism from intelligence. And in any case (not to diminish his intelligence) I think a lot of what made the scam work had more to do with his savvy at sales pitches and reassurances than the sophistication of the actual fraud (which I don't think was really all that sophisticated).

I have the distinct feeling that the higher reaches of finance are filled with genuine sociopaths and with merely objectionable people who aspire to be as sociopathic as the guy in the next cubicle, because within that culture, the more conscienceless you are, the greater your chances of advancement.

the higher reaches of any occupation contain people who lack scruples. so do prisons.

Mark Madoff -- Bernard's son -- committed suicide. He was found in his apartment this morning.

He hanged himself.

That's sad.

the complaint filed by the trustee overseeing the liquidation of bernard l. madoff investment securities llp ("blmis") against jpmorgan chase has been unsealed. it's a very long document, but well-written and fascinating to read.

Unsurprisingly, conflating own level of responsibility with fact that whole system is also fucked up:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/29/nyregion/bernard-l-madoff-says-he-was-made-a-human-pinata.html

"Human pinata"? Before reading it I already suspect it will say: Bernie decided to start a ponzi scheme for fun and profit, then objects that people started to expect too much of him in the way of returns and made running his ponzi scheme more stressful than it should have been.

That poor innocent man. Can't they reduce his sentence to 145 years or something?

Read the article, or some of it. The "human pinata" remark refers to Bernie objecting to the judge not just making him disgorge his ill-gotten gains, but whacking him with a long jail term to recompense society in some small way for the scandalous abuse of his fiduciary trust.

basically madoff says he's been unfairly punished for the sins of unrelated persons who really caused the prolonged recession (wall street bankers, and so forth). it's absurd.

I did read the article.

Sheesh. I mean, like, all I did was defraud people of roughly 250 million dollars and this mean old judge goes and makes a federal case out of it. It's not like I put millions of people out of work, like those all other guys (waves his hand at... no one in particular) who caused the recession. Why pick on me?

Oh, yes. It would be much easier being in jail if I didn't suffer such pangs of remorse.

I think the "read" Aimless typed was short for "I have now read" not "you go read"

Ah. Ok, that makes a lot more sense indeed.

while i do think that Madoff has been made a scapegoat for Wall Street's shenanigans, that doesn't mean that he hadn't done what he had been found guilty of doing nor that his sentence should be reduced by one day.

then again, this entire guy's life has been a never-ending story of escalating chutzpah ... so why stop now?!?

I'm just a murderer. I didn't cause the murder epidemic.

pleas of "yeah i suck and i did bad things, BUT HE DID SOMETHING MUCH WORSE OMIGODWTF!" can be surprisingly effective. but that won't be so for Bernie Madoff in either a court of law or the court of public opinion. even in this day and age, ripping off charities and widows won't get you any sympathy. Madoff should just STFU already.

bernard and ruth madoff supposedly tried to commit suicide after the scandal was exposed.

one of the most blatant attempts at sympathy trolling i've ever seen

yeah, that's my impression, too.

i thought i read that ruth was so furious at bernard after learning of the scheme that she totally divorced herself (legally and otherwise) from him. not saying this is necessarily inconsistent with a mutual suicide pact (or maybe my memory is inaccurate), but it seems odd.

i kind of keep forgetting this guy is still alive honestly. didn't his son kill himself?

yes.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gc2ksjK0U-TlVD910UnN-nZUNdEQ?docId=2f8c6eaa35c84e25949c500636fe95c2

Well, Bernie says he thought about it but didn't attempt it, so

anyone watching 60 mins?

someone tell me that it's okay that i kinda find ruth madoff to be incredibly sexy

for someone who is 65 or w/e

i was but seemed p boring?

idk the whole event still enthralls me

+ the son has never spoken, that part of it is v interesting to me...

i wish surm was watching this, he'd be so into ruth

http://www.badidea.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/bernard-ruth-madoff.jpg

so dignified, despite all

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_O9R7cVoh2qY/Socw_xUT1fI/AAAAAAAAAzk/lHlLr4qswAg/s400/ruthatbeach.jpg

Pfeiffer was so good as Ruth Madoff in "Wizard of Lies"

yeah, she was great.

bernie madoff definitely deserved his punishment. however, i think there is something to his claim that he was a scapegoat for problems that are endemic throughout wall street. those mortgage securities were essentially fraudulent too, but all the people beyond that got off, and the tea party ended up not being angry at the banks, but rather at the people who were misled into buying mortgages they couldn't afford.

a fraudster is currently president of the united states. he paid a 25 million dollar settlement this very year.

fraud is a major part of our economy and people, in general, admire scam artists if they can get away with it. so like, bernie madoff was right when he said that it was fucked up for that times reporter to compare him to ted bundy. that implies he is some wild outsider rather than an exaggerated version of a familiar type.