How Bernie Madoff Made Smart Folks Look Dumb

wordpress ^ | 12/13/08

[TigerLikesRooster]

What do George Carlin and Bernard Madoff have in common?

Mr. Madoff just put the silliest of all financial oxymorons into the spotlight: “sophisticated investor.”

The accounts managed by Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC reported gains of roughly 1% a month like clockwork, with nary a loss, for two decades. Why did that freakishly smooth return not set off alarms among current and prospective investors?

[TigerLikesRooster]

Ping!

[pointsal]

right on top of it....
best regards

[xcamel]

There is no “upper limit” on the IQ of a sucker...

[devane617]

I hate to see people lose their life savings, but greedy people normally get what they deserve.

[Carley]

It’s the entitlement syndrome.

Not much different than Blago when you come down to it.

[reg45]

I guess Bernie made off with the money.

[KeyLargo]

I wonder if Rush Bimbo was snared in this Ponzi Scheme?

[ladyjane]

It will be interesting when we get the full story on this - if we ever do. He was probably laundering money.

[KeyLargo]

Laurence Leamer
Posted December 12, 2008 | 03:32 PM (E

Bernard Madoff and the Jews of Palm Beach

People in Palm Beach sort themselves out into the group in which they belong based largely on how much money they have. Even the poorest of the islanders seem to have everything yet joy proves elusive, even for the country club members, because there is always someone richer or better socially connected. Joy is driving out of your 35,000-square-foot mansion in your Bentley and tooling up to the entrance of Mar-a-Lago for your fifteenth ball of the season, the valet parkers salivating at the chance to take your car and the prospect of a twenty-dollar tip. Joy is having a wife younger and thinner than any of the other wives at your table. Joy is subtly announced during dinner that your hedge fund scored 33 percent last year, while that of the arrogant son of a bitch across the table with the fat wife scored only 17 percent....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laurence-leamer/bernard-madoff-and-the-sh_b_150624.html

[FormerACLUmember]

By the looks of it, the investors were 95% democrat party supporters and/or big contributors.

[FreedomPoster]

I posted the output of an FEC.gov search on Madoff’s political contributions on the first news thread on this. His contributions certainly fit that percentage. Probably closer to 100%.

[DannyTN]

Madoff made off.

[classified]

Your right! The gift wrapping is different but the gift inside is the same! CROOK!!!!!

[Vaduz]

You can’t cheat an honest man
WC Fields

[ripley]

“how bernie medoff made smart folks look dumb.”

a bunch of “brilliant” people invest in a fund that shows unrealistically high returns. the fund gets exposed as a “ponzi” scheme and all-of-a-sudden, these “brilliant” people become dumb.

complicit might be more accurate.

IMHO

[nascarnation]

I know a guy who was in this deal.
He started getting nervous about 6 months ago.
Right now he doesn’t know how much money he really has.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Is it safe to assume that you now have a lot more than he does? It is quite likely.

[Oatka]

When he took your fortune, he told you that he would tell you nothing about how he achieved his returns. He was a god. He had the Midas touch.

History repeats itself. "In April 1720, at about the time the Mississippi Scheme [Bubble] was already in deep trouble, . . . In the process, they bid up the prices of other rather suspect companies, such as companies . . . 'for carrying on an undertaking of Great Advantage but no one to know what it is' ".

[PUGACHEV]

It may be worse than some people suspect. Assuming that Madoff (or his investment company) wind up in an involuntary bankruptcy, and assuming that Madoff’s investments were really just a big Ponzi scheme, those investors who received money from Madoff in the last few years will have to give it back. In bankruptcy court, the proceeds from a Ponzi scheme (sometimes called a blind pool) are fraudulent conveyances, even though the individual investors had no notice of the fraud, and did nothing wrong themselves. A lot of those investors are going to have some very disturbing conversations with their lawyers in the next few days.

[Jimmy Valentine]

No. Bernie took some, but the whole Ponzi scheme thing is paying old investors with new money. After a while the requests for redemptions exceed new money and it all falls down.

This one is a humdinger though. $50 Billion.

Lots of Jewish people in Palm Beach and on Long Island are sitting Shiva right now.

According to the New York Post some have individually lost more than $500 million.

That, my friends is a lot of mazuma!

[PapaBear3625]

I guess Bernie made off with the money.

I would like to see a thorough audit of his trades for the last few years. Either his was a scheme to defraud a whole bunch of wealthy investors, or it was a scheme to launder their wealth offshore while making it LOOK like they lost the money.

It would not surprise me if he defrauded them. Holders of inherited wealth are generally not as smart as the ancestor who first earned the wealth, which is why such people are advocates of big government -- as a tool to make sure that only people who already have wealth can compete.

[kcvl]

Holders of inherited wealth are generally not as smart as the ancestor who first earned the wealth

That's an understatement!

[TheClintons-STILLAnti-American]

Bernie Madoff is the Barrack Obama of finance.

[nascarnation]

Well he just took the Social Security model and brought it to the private sector.......