Posted on 12/16/2008 7:17:43 AM PST by Red Badger
A lifelong New Jersey resident, Bette Greenfield (left) retired in March and moved to Florida in July.
I'm not from a wealthy family living on a big estate in Palm Beach or in an Upper East Side apartment. I'm 71. I've worked hard and lived a quiet life - and have just lost my retire ment savings in the blink of an eye, thanks to Bernie Madoff.
When my brother told me the news, I said, "I guess I'm going to have to live in a refrigerator box now."
I made jokes because it was the only thing I could do to not burst into tears.
How did this happen?
My father, a CPA, was smart and an extremely knowledgeable financial ad viser. As he aged, he wanted to have something where he could put his savings and live off the interest.
He was told by one of his wealthy Palm Beach friends that Bernie Madoff was a miracle worker with invest ments, and that he could pull strings to get Dad into a trust fund with Madoff Securities.
It was less than $400,000 - not a large amount by Madoff standards - but his friend helped him get into a fund. Dad was sure that he had made a wise investment and that he and his wife could be comfortable for the rest of their lives.
For 10 years, he did live off the interest and totally believed in the way the money was increasing.
Dad told me, "Bernie Madoff is brilliant. When I pass away, keep the money with him, and you and your brothers will always have something to fall back on."
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
“I’ve worked hard and lived a quiet life - and have just lost my retire ment savings in the blink of an eye, thanks to Bernie Madoff.”
Let’s not overlook GREED in that equation ...
Just goes to show; the U.S. Gov’t and those who run the Financial Institutions and Industry are the new “Mafia”; they are a pack of crooks covering each others backs. From this point forward, only idiots, fools, or morons would invest in or allow friends and family to invest in U.S. financial instruments, institutions, equity markets and/or banks.
There is something strange about how this guy was able to cheat all these people. As I read the stories from the swindled, there always seem to be references to “get rich”, “get rich fast”....it may seem heartless but it keep hearing “you can’t cheat an honest man”.
Does it apply here I don’t know.
It’s GREED to want to make money in investments?
And I can't shake the belief that the events since Sept are all manipulated to discredit capitalism. Not long ago people hoped that Social Security would be transitioned away and citizens could keep control of their own money, invest it wisely in the stock market and retire comfortably. Hey, do you think that idea would be popular now??
It's all gone to smash, largely because of disreputable politicians and financial con men -- and the solution is going to be socialism and Russian-tyle oligarchs running our lives for us. Then we will all be happy.
“It’s GREED to want to make money in investments?”
The old saying “if it’s too good to be true ...” comes into play — so yes, an element of greed does exist when you go with an unknown with a promise of high returns and no sound basis for it.
Nothing like the combination of greed and ignorance to make someone a pauper.
I see these stories and I know exactly what happened - the people weren’t informed enough to pull their savings out of securities as retirement approached.
If you need the money within 10 years, 5 at the least, you should be OUT of stocks.
Free money is never free.
But she should rest assured, Zero’s gonna pay her mortgage.
For a CPA, she sure wasn’t smart enough to remember rule #1- Diversify.
It’s certainly not wise or prudent to invest in insecure assets when you’re close to retirement.
So are you blaming her? Who's GREED do you mean?
Greed on the part of Madoff or the investors ?.........
I feel sorry for this lady but her father was an awful financial advisor and CPA...
I don’t see this as greed, it seems she was just looking for the best return. She should have diversified where her money is instead of trusting it to a single investor.
Well you should just quit working...because that's greedy too.
/s
I heard Madoff’s returns were in the neighborhood of 2% a month. So let’s say $375,000 invested returns $7500 a month for 10 years. That’s nearly a million of other investor’s money they got.
I guess they’re victims.
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