Wow! $50 billion....The list of who has been taken is astounding, and growing... Going to be months before this is all uncovered. He took almost exclusively from the creme de la creme of the Jewish business community. Unbelievable that he got away from the regulators for so long. I can't for the life of me believe that he was able to do his his own accounting....and clearing... SIPC will be depleted quickly.

But he couldn't have done this all by himself, as he is claiming. While there are a number of foreign investors who were victimized, it's the US securities markets and the regulators who will never again see the same inflow of foreign funds. One talking head said no one man has done more damage to the Jewish community since Hitler....

this is going to take down more of his CREW.Personnally those involved should have all assets seized and when found guilty be EXECUTED. Life in prison is a luxury.If it was me I'd be at the pistol range practicing for the day of the verdict then:nailem:.

The self policing financial marketplace will take care of their own.
NOT
He get off with a light sentence at Camp Wonderland with the Enron dudes and then along with rest of them, waltz off into retirement paid for by his ex-clients.

Again, where's the accountability?

Why are the auditors who gave sub-prime backed securities investment grade status not on the hook for their errors?

Why isn't the SEC on the hook for completely failing to smoke out this fraud? He was a registered business for christmas sake...

-spence

They said on the news .This scam was suspected happening in 1999 and no investigation ,, nothing ,, Its allowed to hit the fan .

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7786923.stm

My town lost approx. $43,000,000 and there is also a 130 person Drs. practice who had all of their retirement savings in his fund.

http://www.sec.gov/answers/ponzi.htm

SEC dropped the ball on this!

Ya know, maybe it's just me, but 50 BILLION sounds like a lot of 'scarole :doh:

I honestly can't figure out why it is that the American people are standing idly by while this crap is going on. Dude, where's the outrage? It seems every story is worse than the last.

The immediate answer is it's all part of the current atmosphere in the United States - people are so shell-shocked by this stuff that it's like playing whack-a-mole trying to stop this kind of robbery. In essence, they are all getting away without major consequences.

You have to blame the SEC to begin with and then go up the chain of command to the very top.

It passed brazen a long time ago - I really have a tough time coming up with a suitable analogy, but it's really white-collar looting and it's been winked at since Bush stole the election the first time around...I think at that point it was abundantly clear that they could get away with anything without fear of consequence and that set the stage.

I had an interesting chat about this with a retired top FBI man I've met who ran some very well known criminal investigations and Wall St. Ponzi scheme investment fraud was among them - he explained to me in detail how it was done and how they were busted. His opinion on this bunco artist was the same - complete lack of due diligence by the appropriate agencies whose job it is to enforce regulations.

To my mind, their lack of action constitutes tacit approval. Reminds me of a story regarding the dismissal of the general manager of a very exclusive local private club over a scam by the assistant GM to skim money off the waiters tips.

They told the GM that he was either implicated in the theft or it simply went on without his knowledge due to his lack of diligence. Either way, he was to consider himself fired. Same sort of thing.

The bottom line is that an obscene amount of money has evaporated and most of it will take years of forensic accounting to locate if ever at all.

Ultimately, the most disconcerting thing for me is that I just can't figure out when it was that the moral compass of this nation got completely dismantled, although I have a couple of good guesses.

I was just given a copy of Al Gore's The Assault on Reason and it touches precisely on this point.

Regardless of what you think of Gore, pro or con, it's brilliantly written and speaks to this very issue. I've just begun the book and I highly recommend that you read it - it will connect the dots for you, I guarantee.

Remember rule number one of investing is to be diversified..... also know what you own and why.:uhuh:

Blindly trusting anyone with all of your assets is just plain stupid. I know some people had everything under Madoffs roof, some had lesser proportions. It just drives home the point above even more of being diversified.

There are plenty of Madoffs out there, believe me. A scam the size of this can't be pulled off by one person alone. If Madoff sings, there will be a domino effect and many more individuals and institutions will get fingered.

Without validating this following statement, because I am not well-versed in the market, I have always felt from a layman's view that the stock market itself is a variation of a Ponzi scheme even if it is supposedly legitimate.

Its seems my whole working life whenever the economy gets big and fat ,they wring it out . Ten year cycles it seems . The world ran out of oil in the 70's and times got tough. We waited in line to get $10 worth of gas every other day . The economy tanked .. We worked for crumbs and built it up again only to be wringed out again late 80's early 90's.. 2009-10 here we are again . Anyone eles see a pattern here ? Put the white collar crooks in the same prisons as the other murder's and thieves . No . the slap on the wrist is coming .. :huh:

Its seems my whole working life whenever the economy gets big and fat ,they wring it out . Ten year cycles it seems . The world ran out of oil in the 70's and times got tough. We waited in line to get $10 worth of gas every other day . The economy tanked .. We worked for crumbs and built it up again only to be wringed out again late 80's early 90's.. 2009-10 here we are again . Anyone eles see a pattern here ? Put the white collar crooks in the same prisons as the other murder's and thieves . No . the slap on the wrist is coming .. :huh:


I'm with you Tagger - put 'em in a suitable place like a state penitentiary, not one of those country-club Federal facilities.

Figure 25 years in the hole playing husband-and-wife with a 300 lb guy named Bubba oughta give them a opportunity to reflect on their past :eek5:

You just have to motivate the judiciary to start smacking these guys with a bigger stick than a few months of confinement.

Without validating this following statement, because I am not well-versed in the market, I have always felt from a layman's view that the stock market itself is a variation of a Ponzi scheme even if it is supposedly legitimate.

I couldn't agree more, Swimmer.