jamesinclair
Banned
Is it just me or is this not getting enough coverage?
Former NASDAQ Chairman charged with $50 BILLION Ponzi scheme
- Thread starter RSTEIN
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i don't think much can be said until his finances are completely audited to find out the true damage he has done. but the simple fact that CHARITIES are being wiped out completely due to this asshole makes me angry let alone the billionaire investors who trusted him as well.
the thing about white collar crime that makes it so enticing to these greedy bastards is that no matter how much money u steal in ur white collar crime the gov't can only take so much back from you. so you can use that money you stole to afford good lawyers and get off with a light sentence and still make off with enough money to feed ur kids kids kids for a good amount of time as well as the numerous off shore accounts u probably have not getting taxed as well, but that's another problem with our financial system all together
the thing about white collar crime that makes it so enticing to these greedy bastards is that no matter how much money u steal in ur white collar crime the gov't can only take so much back from you. so you can use that money you stole to afford good lawyers and get off with a light sentence and still make off with enough money to feed ur kids kids kids for a good amount of time as well as the numerous off shore accounts u probably have not getting taxed as well, but that's another problem with our financial system all together
according to my understanding he only had about 20 total investors and since it was an invite only kinda club the majority billionaire mutual fund managers their investment totals are way over the 500,000 this would provide them.
or does it cover each individual person in each mutual fund who's manager who happened to trust their fund with madoff?
or does it cover each individual person in each mutual fund who's manager who happened to trust their fund with madoff?
speculawyer
Member
Wait a minute . . . . these people invested in an unregulated hedge fund (when they could have invested in a normal mutual fund) but they are are gonna get protection anyway?Cloudy said:
I mean I feel sorry for them, but that is kinda fucked. They get the freedom of being in an unregulated hedge fund AND the protection of the SIPC? Is this right?
CharlieDigital
Banned
The more I thought about this, the more I ended up coming back to the same thought:
"Isn't Wall Street just one big Ponzi scheme?"
Krugman's column from yesterday sums this up nicely:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/19/opinion/19krugman.html
I find the line about our "brightest young people" particularly interesting.
There's another piece in the NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/business/18pay.html?_r=2&hp=&pagewanted=all
Looking at my 401k and investments, I feel like I've been taken in a giant Ponzi scheme.
"Isn't Wall Street just one big Ponzi scheme?"
Krugman's column from yesterday sums this up nicely:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/19/opinion/19krugman.html
The revelation that Bernard Madoff brilliant investor (or so almost everyone thought), philanthropist, pillar of the community was a phony has shocked the world, and understandably so. The scale of his alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme is hard to comprehend.
Yet surely Im not the only person to ask the obvious question: How different, really, is Mr. Madoffs tale from the story of the investment industry as a whole?
The financial services industry has claimed an ever-growing share of the nations income over the past generation, making the people who run the industry incredibly rich. Yet, at this point, it looks as if much of the industry has been destroying value, not creating it. And its not just a matter of money: the vast riches achieved by those who managed other peoples money have had a corrupting effect on our society as a whole.
Lets start with those paychecks. Last year, the average salary of employees in securities, commodity contracts, and investments was more than four times the average salary in the rest of the economy. Earning a million dollars was nothing special, and even incomes of $20 million or more were fairly common. The incomes of the richest Americans have exploded over the past generation, even as wages of ordinary workers have stagnated; high pay on Wall Street was a major cause of that divergence.
But surely those financial superstars must have been earning their millions, right? No, not necessarily. The pay system on Wall Street lavishly rewards the appearance of profit, even if that appearance later turns out to have been an illusion.
Consider the hypothetical example of a money manager who leverages up his clients money with lots of debt, then invests the bulked-up total in high-yielding but risky assets, such as dubious mortgage-backed securities. For a while say, as long as a housing bubble continues to inflate he (its almost always a he) will make big profits and receive big bonuses. Then, when the bubble bursts and his investments turn into toxic waste, his investors will lose big but hell keep those bonuses.
O.K., maybe my example wasnt hypothetical after all.
So, how different is what Wall Street in general did from the Madoff affair? Well, Mr. Madoff allegedly skipped a few steps, simply stealing his clients money rather than collecting big fees while exposing investors to risks they didnt understand. And while Mr. Madoff was apparently a self-conscious fraud, many people on Wall Street believed their own hype. Still, the end result was the same (except for the house arrest): the money managers got rich; the investors saw their money disappear.
Were talking about a lot of money here. In recent years the finance sector accounted for 8 percent of Americas G.D.P., up from less than 5 percent a generation earlier. If that extra 3 percent was money for nothing and it probably was were talking about $400 billion a year in waste, fraud and abuse.
But the costs of Americas Ponzi era surely went beyond the direct waste of dollars and cents.
At the crudest level, Wall Streets ill-gotten gains corrupted and continue to corrupt politics, in a nicely bipartisan way. From Bush administration officials like Christopher Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who looked the other way as evidence of financial fraud mounted, to Democrats who still havent closed the outrageous tax loophole that benefits executives at hedge funds and private equity firms (hello, Senator Schumer), politicians have walked when money talked.
Meanwhile, how much has our nations future been damaged by the magnetic pull of quick personal wealth, which for years has drawn many of our best and brightest young people into investment banking, at the expense of science, public service and just about everything else?
Most of all, the vast riches being earned or maybe that should be earned in our bloated financial industry undermined our sense of reality and degraded our judgment.
Think of the way almost everyone important missed the warning signs of an impending crisis. How was that possible? How, for example, could Alan Greenspan have declared, just a few years ago, that the financial system as a whole has become more resilient thanks to derivatives, no less? The answer, I believe, is that theres an innate tendency on the part of even the elite to idolize men who are making a lot of money, and assume that they know what theyre doing.
After all, thats why so many people trusted Mr. Madoff.
Now, as we survey the wreckage and try to understand how things can have gone so wrong, so fast, the answer is actually quite simple: What were looking at now are the consequences of a world gone Madoff.
Yet surely Im not the only person to ask the obvious question: How different, really, is Mr. Madoffs tale from the story of the investment industry as a whole?
The financial services industry has claimed an ever-growing share of the nations income over the past generation, making the people who run the industry incredibly rich. Yet, at this point, it looks as if much of the industry has been destroying value, not creating it. And its not just a matter of money: the vast riches achieved by those who managed other peoples money have had a corrupting effect on our society as a whole.
Lets start with those paychecks. Last year, the average salary of employees in securities, commodity contracts, and investments was more than four times the average salary in the rest of the economy. Earning a million dollars was nothing special, and even incomes of $20 million or more were fairly common. The incomes of the richest Americans have exploded over the past generation, even as wages of ordinary workers have stagnated; high pay on Wall Street was a major cause of that divergence.
But surely those financial superstars must have been earning their millions, right? No, not necessarily. The pay system on Wall Street lavishly rewards the appearance of profit, even if that appearance later turns out to have been an illusion.
Consider the hypothetical example of a money manager who leverages up his clients money with lots of debt, then invests the bulked-up total in high-yielding but risky assets, such as dubious mortgage-backed securities. For a while say, as long as a housing bubble continues to inflate he (its almost always a he) will make big profits and receive big bonuses. Then, when the bubble bursts and his investments turn into toxic waste, his investors will lose big but hell keep those bonuses.
O.K., maybe my example wasnt hypothetical after all.
So, how different is what Wall Street in general did from the Madoff affair? Well, Mr. Madoff allegedly skipped a few steps, simply stealing his clients money rather than collecting big fees while exposing investors to risks they didnt understand. And while Mr. Madoff was apparently a self-conscious fraud, many people on Wall Street believed their own hype. Still, the end result was the same (except for the house arrest): the money managers got rich; the investors saw their money disappear.
Were talking about a lot of money here. In recent years the finance sector accounted for 8 percent of Americas G.D.P., up from less than 5 percent a generation earlier. If that extra 3 percent was money for nothing and it probably was were talking about $400 billion a year in waste, fraud and abuse.
But the costs of Americas Ponzi era surely went beyond the direct waste of dollars and cents.
At the crudest level, Wall Streets ill-gotten gains corrupted and continue to corrupt politics, in a nicely bipartisan way. From Bush administration officials like Christopher Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who looked the other way as evidence of financial fraud mounted, to Democrats who still havent closed the outrageous tax loophole that benefits executives at hedge funds and private equity firms (hello, Senator Schumer), politicians have walked when money talked.
Meanwhile, how much has our nations future been damaged by the magnetic pull of quick personal wealth, which for years has drawn many of our best and brightest young people into investment banking, at the expense of science, public service and just about everything else?
Most of all, the vast riches being earned or maybe that should be earned in our bloated financial industry undermined our sense of reality and degraded our judgment.
Think of the way almost everyone important missed the warning signs of an impending crisis. How was that possible? How, for example, could Alan Greenspan have declared, just a few years ago, that the financial system as a whole has become more resilient thanks to derivatives, no less? The answer, I believe, is that theres an innate tendency on the part of even the elite to idolize men who are making a lot of money, and assume that they know what theyre doing.
After all, thats why so many people trusted Mr. Madoff.
Now, as we survey the wreckage and try to understand how things can have gone so wrong, so fast, the answer is actually quite simple: What were looking at now are the consequences of a world gone Madoff.
I find the line about our "brightest young people" particularly interesting.
There's another piece in the NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/business/18pay.html?_r=2&hp=&pagewanted=all
For Dow Kim, 2006 was a very good year. While his salary at Merrill Lynch was $350,000, his total compensation was 100 times that $35 million.
The difference between the two amounts was his bonus, a rich reward for the robust earnings made by the traders he oversaw in Merrills mortgage business.
Mr. Kims colleagues, not only at his level, but far down the ranks, also pocketed large paychecks. In all, Merrill handed out $5 billion to $6 billion in bonuses that year. A 20-something analyst with a base salary of $130,000 collected a bonus of $250,000. And a 30-something trader with a $180,000 salary got $5 million.
But Merrills record earnings in 2006 $7.5 billion turned out to be a mirage. The company has since lost three times that amount, largely because the mortgage investments that supposedly had powered some of those profits plunged in value.
Unlike the earnings, however, the bonuses have not been reversed.
As regulators and shareholders sift through the rubble of the financial crisis, questions are being asked about what role lavish bonuses played in the debacle. Scrutiny over pay is intensifying as banks like Merrill prepare to dole out bonuses even after they have had to be propped up with billions of dollars of taxpayers money. While bonuses are expected to be half of what they were a year ago, some bankers could still collect millions of dollars.
The difference between the two amounts was his bonus, a rich reward for the robust earnings made by the traders he oversaw in Merrills mortgage business.
Mr. Kims colleagues, not only at his level, but far down the ranks, also pocketed large paychecks. In all, Merrill handed out $5 billion to $6 billion in bonuses that year. A 20-something analyst with a base salary of $130,000 collected a bonus of $250,000. And a 30-something trader with a $180,000 salary got $5 million.
But Merrills record earnings in 2006 $7.5 billion turned out to be a mirage. The company has since lost three times that amount, largely because the mortgage investments that supposedly had powered some of those profits plunged in value.
Unlike the earnings, however, the bonuses have not been reversed.
As regulators and shareholders sift through the rubble of the financial crisis, questions are being asked about what role lavish bonuses played in the debacle. Scrutiny over pay is intensifying as banks like Merrill prepare to dole out bonuses even after they have had to be propped up with billions of dollars of taxpayers money. While bonuses are expected to be half of what they were a year ago, some bankers could still collect millions of dollars.
Looking at my 401k and investments, I feel like I've been taken in a giant Ponzi scheme.
VeritasVierge
Member
Good article and I agree with everything. This thread hzs been a perfect example of hoe people look up to that kind of scumbag just because he made alot of money. Save for people like me who will always despise the "Man" putting the rest of us down. Usually rich white men that stay getting rich (and the law does next to nothing about it) even after they get caught stealing millions. In this case billions! I mean he's facing a 5 million dollar fine. Really!
I have a hard time believing NOBODY knew about this. All those banks, investors etc and not a single person asked where the money was coming from?
Wouldn't surprise me if those people were in on it and this recent banking meltdown bought it all to light when others started going over the books.
Wouldn't surprise me if those people were in on it and this recent banking meltdown bought it all to light when others started going over the books.
CharlieDigital
Banned
D4Danger said:
Actually, from what I've read, people in the know (including institutional investors) knew that something was up but didn't question it as long as they were making money.
D4Danger said:
Yeah, as said, several people knew, and a lot of people were very suspicious. One guy actually wrote the SEC years ago but was never taken seriously. Several Fund-of-Funds and placement agencies were scared away. The consistent returns and lack of transparency scared a lot of people.
RSTEIN said:
That's why I think there's more to this. The people who should've been looking into this did no such thing. Also, Madoff being the former NASDAQ Chairman means it probably has friends in high places.
I just wonder how deep the feds will dig. Madoff seems quite keen to take all the blame.
CharlieDigital said:
I've been saying much of this same stuff for literally years, even on this forum. Hopefully now that someone with some clout says it, people will listen. The obscene amount of wealth concentrated in the financial sector has perverted and distorted our society in myriad ways.
I know this is from espn, but I feel like it was relevant...
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/081223
and people say the system isn't rigged and hard work pays off.....just because there are exceptions to the rule doesn't mean change isn't needed
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/081223
and people say the system isn't rigged and hard work pays off.....just because there are exceptions to the rule doesn't mean change isn't needed
Jason's Ultimatum
Member
D4Danger said:
Holy shit.
Bluecondor
Member
Bernie's latest is just sickening. If they don't jail him after this, they should just shut down the Justice Department.
The man gets charged with cheating investors out of $50 billion, but gets let out on bail to live in his Park Avenue penthouse - fine, whatever. But - how do you try to mail $1 million worth of jewelry to your relatives? It is bad enough that the guy screwed over all of his friends to make the 50 bill, but now he's out there flouting the basic rules of being allowed out on bail.
What a slap in the face to all of those people he bankrupted. Ya jackass - it is OK that you lost these people's life savings, but you should get to keep a mill in jewelry.
If this wasn't on MSNBC, I would swear it was an urban legend, it's that maddening.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28502943/
quote/ Prosecutor wants Madoff jailed immediately
Says mailing jewelry to relatives violated bail; D.C. holds hearing on case
The Associated Press
updated 4:58 p.m. ET, Mon., Jan. 5, 2009
NEW YORK - A prosecutor says disgraced financier Bernard Madoff violated bail conditions by mailing about $1 million worth of jewelry and other assets to relatives. The prosecutor wants him jailed without bail.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Marc Litt made the request to revoke Madoffs bail at a hearing in federal court on Monday. Madoff has been under house arrest.
CNBC reported the judge defered ruling on the motion and requested that both sides present more evidence later in the week.
Madoffs lawyer, Ira Sorkin, described the items as heirlooms that included cufflinks and antique watches. Sorkin said they were not significant assets.
The 70-year-old former Nasdaq stock market chairman is accused of duping investors out of as much as $50 billion in a giant Ponzi scheme.
Madoff, who was arrested Dec. 11 on securities fraud charges, owns yachts and mansions in New Yorks Hamptons and Palm Beach, Fla.
Meanwhile in Washington, the internal watchdog at the Securities and Exchange Commission said Monday an investigation of the agency's failure to uncover the alleged $50 billion fraud will extend broadly to the agency's enforcement operations.
Inspector General H. David Kotz testified before a House panel examining the Madoff affair and the agency's failure to act despite receiving complaints over a decade.
Kotz said his office's probe will go beyond specific issues that SEC Chairman Christopher Cox asked him to investigate. He said that it also will examine the operations of the SEC's enforcement and inspection divisions and will make recommendations.
At the start of the House hearing, Democrat Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania questioned whether congressional appropriations had provided the agency sufficient resources to do the job. From 1995 to 2007, the House was under Republican control.
"Clearly, our regulatory system ... failed miserably and we must rebuild it now," said Kanjorski.
Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., pointed to regulatory gaps rather than the level of congressional appropriations as the reason for the Madoff scandal.
Bachus called for Congress to create a regulatory structure "for the 21st century."
The heavy toll of the Madoff scandal was brought before Congress as the House Financial Services Committee tries to determine how, despite warnings back to at least 1999 to SEC staff members, Madoff continued to operate his alleged Ponzi scheme.
"I am a human face on this tragedy," said Allan Goldstein, a retired New York textile distributor who planned to testify at Monday's hearing.
Goldstein, 76, said he lost his entire life savings with Madoff and had to cash in his life insurance policies to cover his mortgage.
"Everything I worked for over a 50-year career is gone," Goldstein said in an e-mail message from his attorney's firm. He said he had no reason to question the steady returns of 8 percent to 12 percent a year that Madoff's firm told him he was earning.
The Securities Investor Protection Corp. and the trustee handling the liquidation of Madoff's firm said Monday they mailed more than 8,000 claim forms to customers on Friday. Besides individuals, others who lost money were big hedge funds, international banks and charities.
The SEC received complaints about Madoff's investment methods over a decade.
Members of the House panel on both sides of the aisle said the episode with Madoff exposes systemic problems at the SEC.
The Madoff scandal is like "the cherry on a bad sundae," said Rep. Paul Hodes, D-N.H.
Lawmakers jumped on the opportunity to show concern in the first congressional hearing since the scandal broke with Madoff's arrest on Dec. 11.
Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., insisted that all five SEC commissioners should tender their resignations to President-elect Obama.
Yet Republicans warned against rushing to new regulation as a response to the SEC breakdown.
"While the failures of regulatory and private-sector due diligence exposed by the Madoff matter are obvious, they do not lead me to conclude at this stage of the inquiry that what is needed are broad new legislative or regulatory mandates on the rest of the securities industry," said Rep. Spencer Bachus of Alabama, the senior Republican on the panel.
"What we may have in the Madoff case is not necessarily a lack of enforcement and oversight tools, but a failure to use them," he said.
The Madoff scandal allegedly involves a Ponzi scheme, in which people are persuaded to invest in a fraudulent operation. The early investors are paid their returns out of money put in by later investors.
It is named after Charles Ponzi, an Italian immigrant to Boston who worked as a waiter, bank teller and nurse before he talked investors into sinking their money into a complex and, it turned out, bogus scheme involving postal currency. His swindle in 1919-20 cheated thousands of people out of $10 million. He was convicted of mail fraud and sent to prison and, in 1934, deported.
© 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. /quote
The man gets charged with cheating investors out of $50 billion, but gets let out on bail to live in his Park Avenue penthouse - fine, whatever. But - how do you try to mail $1 million worth of jewelry to your relatives? It is bad enough that the guy screwed over all of his friends to make the 50 bill, but now he's out there flouting the basic rules of being allowed out on bail.
What a slap in the face to all of those people he bankrupted. Ya jackass - it is OK that you lost these people's life savings, but you should get to keep a mill in jewelry.
If this wasn't on MSNBC, I would swear it was an urban legend, it's that maddening.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28502943/
quote/ Prosecutor wants Madoff jailed immediately
Says mailing jewelry to relatives violated bail; D.C. holds hearing on case
The Associated Press
updated 4:58 p.m. ET, Mon., Jan. 5, 2009
NEW YORK - A prosecutor says disgraced financier Bernard Madoff violated bail conditions by mailing about $1 million worth of jewelry and other assets to relatives. The prosecutor wants him jailed without bail.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Marc Litt made the request to revoke Madoffs bail at a hearing in federal court on Monday. Madoff has been under house arrest.
CNBC reported the judge defered ruling on the motion and requested that both sides present more evidence later in the week.
Madoffs lawyer, Ira Sorkin, described the items as heirlooms that included cufflinks and antique watches. Sorkin said they were not significant assets.
The 70-year-old former Nasdaq stock market chairman is accused of duping investors out of as much as $50 billion in a giant Ponzi scheme.
Madoff, who was arrested Dec. 11 on securities fraud charges, owns yachts and mansions in New Yorks Hamptons and Palm Beach, Fla.
Meanwhile in Washington, the internal watchdog at the Securities and Exchange Commission said Monday an investigation of the agency's failure to uncover the alleged $50 billion fraud will extend broadly to the agency's enforcement operations.
Inspector General H. David Kotz testified before a House panel examining the Madoff affair and the agency's failure to act despite receiving complaints over a decade.
Kotz said his office's probe will go beyond specific issues that SEC Chairman Christopher Cox asked him to investigate. He said that it also will examine the operations of the SEC's enforcement and inspection divisions and will make recommendations.
At the start of the House hearing, Democrat Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania questioned whether congressional appropriations had provided the agency sufficient resources to do the job. From 1995 to 2007, the House was under Republican control.
"Clearly, our regulatory system ... failed miserably and we must rebuild it now," said Kanjorski.
Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., pointed to regulatory gaps rather than the level of congressional appropriations as the reason for the Madoff scandal.
Bachus called for Congress to create a regulatory structure "for the 21st century."
The heavy toll of the Madoff scandal was brought before Congress as the House Financial Services Committee tries to determine how, despite warnings back to at least 1999 to SEC staff members, Madoff continued to operate his alleged Ponzi scheme.
"I am a human face on this tragedy," said Allan Goldstein, a retired New York textile distributor who planned to testify at Monday's hearing.
Goldstein, 76, said he lost his entire life savings with Madoff and had to cash in his life insurance policies to cover his mortgage.
"Everything I worked for over a 50-year career is gone," Goldstein said in an e-mail message from his attorney's firm. He said he had no reason to question the steady returns of 8 percent to 12 percent a year that Madoff's firm told him he was earning.
The Securities Investor Protection Corp. and the trustee handling the liquidation of Madoff's firm said Monday they mailed more than 8,000 claim forms to customers on Friday. Besides individuals, others who lost money were big hedge funds, international banks and charities.
The SEC received complaints about Madoff's investment methods over a decade.
Members of the House panel on both sides of the aisle said the episode with Madoff exposes systemic problems at the SEC.
The Madoff scandal is like "the cherry on a bad sundae," said Rep. Paul Hodes, D-N.H.
Lawmakers jumped on the opportunity to show concern in the first congressional hearing since the scandal broke with Madoff's arrest on Dec. 11.
Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., insisted that all five SEC commissioners should tender their resignations to President-elect Obama.
Yet Republicans warned against rushing to new regulation as a response to the SEC breakdown.
"While the failures of regulatory and private-sector due diligence exposed by the Madoff matter are obvious, they do not lead me to conclude at this stage of the inquiry that what is needed are broad new legislative or regulatory mandates on the rest of the securities industry," said Rep. Spencer Bachus of Alabama, the senior Republican on the panel.
"What we may have in the Madoff case is not necessarily a lack of enforcement and oversight tools, but a failure to use them," he said.
The Madoff scandal allegedly involves a Ponzi scheme, in which people are persuaded to invest in a fraudulent operation. The early investors are paid their returns out of money put in by later investors.
It is named after Charles Ponzi, an Italian immigrant to Boston who worked as a waiter, bank teller and nurse before he talked investors into sinking their money into a complex and, it turned out, bogus scheme involving postal currency. His swindle in 1919-20 cheated thousands of people out of $10 million. He was convicted of mail fraud and sent to prison and, in 1934, deported.
© 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. /quote
CharlieDigital
Banned
xnipx said:
This is the part that kills me:
Justice has not been served.
Torquill
Member
This isn't a white collar crime. This is a whole new freaking strata. This shit is gold-collar and should have perm life-altering penalties. You lose everything and are not allowed to have anything. You are on perm poor and all the people you screwed get to share your for labor the rest of your days.
Ollie Pooch
In a perfect world, we'd all be homersexual
this piece of shit costs people 50 billion dollars and evidently gets off with a slap on the wrist? what the fuck?
and then has the audacity to try and mail $1 million in jewelry and send out almost $200 million dollars in SIGNED checks he probably planned on sending out this week to his friends and family. he is the epitome of the beast that our financial system has created and i feel like people like him and people who strive to get to his position should all be ashamed. greed is really evil people
I'm posting a video that some of you may find quite funny, I laughed my ass off but maybe it's because I know who Walter Noel is, and what kind of person he is.
Noel's fund invested $7B+ with Madoff, his firm collected huge fees by linking investors to Madoff.
He owns a house on Mustique, in the video he is arguing with the Baron Glenconner who bought the island years ago, but couldn't afford it all to himself and decide to sell off some land.
The Baron (the guy in the white outfit) wants to pitch a tent, and they won't let him...
http://vimeo.com/2746640?pg=embed&sec=2746640
I find it hysterical, sound is a bit low. These people are on a different planet if you ask me. For the record, Noel's wife describes her house in Greenwich as a modest cottage...hahaha.
Edit: Wonder how Madoff pushed Noel around, wonder no more.
Noel's fund invested $7B+ with Madoff, his firm collected huge fees by linking investors to Madoff.
He owns a house on Mustique, in the video he is arguing with the Baron Glenconner who bought the island years ago, but couldn't afford it all to himself and decide to sell off some land.
The Baron (the guy in the white outfit) wants to pitch a tent, and they won't let him...
http://vimeo.com/2746640?pg=embed&sec=2746640
I find it hysterical, sound is a bit low. These people are on a different planet if you ask me. For the record, Noel's wife describes her house in Greenwich as a modest cottage...hahaha.
Edit: Wonder how Madoff pushed Noel around, wonder no more.
CharlieDigital
Banned
http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/12/news/newsmakers/madoff_judge_ruling/index.htm?postversion=2009011212
I seriously don't understand what the fuck is going on here. This guy gets to hang out in his cushy penthouse apartment while awaiting trial? What. The. Fuck.
Madoff to remain under house arrest
Judge declines government request to revoke financier's bail in $50 billion fraud case, but imposes new restrictions on his home detention.
(CNNMoney.com) -- A judge ruled Monday that Bernard Madoff would not be sent to jail pending trial, declining a request by prosecutors to revoke the bail of the financier accused in a $50 billion fraud case.
Judge declines government request to revoke financier's bail in $50 billion fraud case, but imposes new restrictions on his home detention.
(CNNMoney.com) -- A judge ruled Monday that Bernard Madoff would not be sent to jail pending trial, declining a request by prosecutors to revoke the bail of the financier accused in a $50 billion fraud case.
I seriously don't understand what the fuck is going on here. This guy gets to hang out in his cushy penthouse apartment while awaiting trial? What. The. Fuck.
According to CNN, house arrest is standard procedure with white collar crime. However, with practically everyone crying for Medoff's blood, I'm thinking that he'll get at least 20 years for this, if not life.
Even if he just gets a slap on the wrist, I'd imagine he'll most likely have to live the rest of his life under tight security.
Even if he just gets a slap on the wrist, I'd imagine he'll most likely have to live the rest of his life under tight security.
HamPster PamPster
Member
If 50 billion is 20 years in jail... thats about 5 thousand every second you're in jail (I think)
I'll go to jail for a few days if you let me steal the equivalent money
I'll go to jail for a few days if you let me steal the equivalent money
actually it's ~19,000 per second if my calculation was correct. and it's a shame that these "white collar" crimes that supposedly hurt no one let these people live their lives like normal until trial and then get sent to nice cushy club fed while if u get caught with a few hundred bucks worth of drugs u spending the night in jail and definitely would not stay on house arrest after trying to send money/jewelry to friends and family
The problem with America is also this whole shifting of the economy to 'service oriented.' We are really weak structurally and it's all based upon greed. We hardly produce anything. What happens when a country such as China, who is a huge supplier of many of our goods, decide that America is a threat and limits the exports to America? Where we going to get all these cheap clothes and other goods from? What also irks me is that the retarded business owners are rushing over there to give them the manufacturing expertise and the such to save a little money. Then those guys leave the company and start their own... That's what you get when you cater solely to the CEOs who run these corporations. They can realize cost benefits by shifting jobs when they feel you are starting to get overpriced, and if you aren't a business owner who can do this, you'll end up being screwed.
The arrogant among us can say some nonsense like, "Bud, you need to get more skills! You need more expertise!" And he can only say that because his job hasn't been under attack like some of the other industries... But watch what happens when his secure job that we went to school so long for starts increasingly getting imported to India because CEOs can save more money. Oh that accounting bachelors is nice, but this guy in India will do what you're doing for half the money and he has a masters!
On the actual issue at hand, a lot of the financial industry is a fraud. It's a bunch of greedy guys who happen to be fairly intelligent, so they skillfully sell each other fantasies until it all blows up and then have the audacity to act exasperated after the fact. "What? How could that have happened? You mean throwing all this money into risky assets might actually mean that I lose it? But this analysis, this analysis I know.. This shouldn't be happening!"
The greed and incompetence haven't disappeared. These guys are still here. America hasn't seen the worst yet. You have incompetent, short-sighted leaders, you pay for it... and guess what, we're in debt. So far, we've only put a small down-payment on that greed and incompetence mortgage.
The arrogant among us can say some nonsense like, "Bud, you need to get more skills! You need more expertise!" And he can only say that because his job hasn't been under attack like some of the other industries... But watch what happens when his secure job that we went to school so long for starts increasingly getting imported to India because CEOs can save more money. Oh that accounting bachelors is nice, but this guy in India will do what you're doing for half the money and he has a masters!
On the actual issue at hand, a lot of the financial industry is a fraud. It's a bunch of greedy guys who happen to be fairly intelligent, so they skillfully sell each other fantasies until it all blows up and then have the audacity to act exasperated after the fact. "What? How could that have happened? You mean throwing all this money into risky assets might actually mean that I lose it? But this analysis, this analysis I know.. This shouldn't be happening!"
The greed and incompetence haven't disappeared. These guys are still here. America hasn't seen the worst yet. You have incompetent, short-sighted leaders, you pay for it... and guess what, we're in debt. So far, we've only put a small down-payment on that greed and incompetence mortgage.
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE50F0BY20090116
Wow, looks like it was a ponzi scheme from the get-go. How was this not caught by the feds?
Unreal..
Wow, looks like it was a ponzi scheme from the get-go. How was this not caught by the feds?
Unreal..
jamesinclair said:
The 'second-hand smoke' thread has 94 responses.
This is the 90th response in this thread, it's sad. I don't know why there's so little interest in this case.
People go directly to jail if they steal $30k from a bank but someone can steal $50 bil and still live in their fucking apartment. It's an outrage.
Justin Bailey
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?Zep said:
Why should his family suffer? His family were the ones that turned his ass in.
Hahaha, you actually believe that shit? Fuckin gullible people, I tell ya.
So they know a shitstorm is about to come on them? Why should his sons burn in this and the family have NO money left. Sons turn on his ass, wife divorces him, the heat is off them and money stays within the family for generations. It's a fuckin joke...It's smart though, I tell ya. His sons have a lot more to live for then his ass, so like I said, why have them go down in a heap?
Excuse me if I don't believe everything coming from their mouths. The shit is so transparent. If you believe they are innocent in all this, good for you, good for you.
So they know a shitstorm is about to come on them? Why should his sons burn in this and the family have NO money left. Sons turn on his ass, wife divorces him, the heat is off them and money stays within the family for generations. It's a fuckin joke...It's smart though, I tell ya. His sons have a lot more to live for then his ass, so like I said, why have them go down in a heap?
Excuse me if I don't believe everything coming from their mouths. The shit is so transparent. If you believe they are innocent in all this, good for you, good for you.
Justin Bailey
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Damn man, you're so smart. It's amazing you were able to figure all of that out without any real evidence. I think you missed your calling as a sunglasses-wearing detective in Miami.Zep said:
Justin Bailey
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You figured what I was going to say before I said it?? You really got some skills man.Zep said:
Zep said:
While I can't charge his sons with his crime (without evidence obviously) I have no problem liquifying everything Maddoff has ever owned and trying to repay whatever they can. To think about Maddoff in his sweet ass NYC loft and the wealth that his family wipes their ass with, while some of his investors handed literally every penny over to his burning in hell ass, it just makes me sick.
Take the apt, take the cars, take the jewelry, take the clothes etc, and put him in a holding cell just like he would be if he had robbed a bank.
But we all know that's not going to happen.
Justin Bailey
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I'm not gonna rule it out, but calling for his family to be burned at the stake is just a knee-jerk reaction at this point. I'll wait until there's more evidence.Cloudy said:
Right now I'm pretty much with Loki and DJ_Tet.
Cloudy said:
I just read an article in the local paper today about charges being brought against a business associate/partner of Madoff. I forget his name -- middle name was Ezra. Last name Melkin, Merkin or something like that. I skimmed it. They said it's the first time charges have been brought against anyone other than Madoff for this scheme.
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