I Knew Bernie Madoff Was Cheating, That's Why I Invested with Him

[girl gone mad]

From ClusterStock.com, Dec. 12, 2008:

Interesting tidbits coming in about Bernie Madoff.

Specifically, we're hearing that the smart money KNEW Bernie had to be cheating, because the returns he was generating were impossibly good. Many Wall Streeters suspected the wrong rigged game, though: They thought it was insider trading, not a Ponzi scheme. And here's the best part: That's why they invested with him.

For years and years I've heard people say that investment performance was too good to be true. The returns were too steady -- like GE earnings under Welch -- and too high given the supposed strategy.

One Madoff investor, himself a legend, told me that Madoff's performance "just doesn't make sense. The numbers can't be straight." Another sophisticated Madoff investor actually went through trade confirms in order to reverse-engineer the strategy and said, "it doesn't add up."

So why did these smart and skeptical investors keep investing? They, like many Madoff investors, assumed Madoff was somehow illegally trading on information from his market-making business for their benefit. They didn't consider the possibility that he was clean on that score but running a good old-fashioned Ponzi scheme.

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/145115/I-Knew-Bernie-Madoff-Was-Cheating--That%27s-Why-I-Invested-with-Him

More at link.

My comment: another Wall Street player with a perfectly Dickensian name. It looks like Bernie Madoff made off with a whole lot of money. It's hard to muster much sympathy for his victims when at least a few of them didn't mind doing business with a scam artist so long as they thought he was scamming someone else.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

1. I think it was in today's NY Times

that I read how Madoff told people, when they'd first invest with them, "I'm not going to tell you anything about where I'm putting your money."

AND THEY ALL WENT ALONG WITH IT!

So, this man could have been funding terrorists, hosting sweatshops, financing white slavery, cranking out child porn, and they would have been all right with that, because he was making money for them.

I will have to work harder to feel sorry for any of these people.

[sandnsea]

5. Except for the terrorists

The rest of that would have been legal in the countries they "invested" in, and you know all that matters is the words written on those big old legal books. Have you not read about the Marianas? It was hell getting the laws changed there and I would bet 90% of the country still doesn't understand what was going on there, all with the stamp of "USA".

[Tangerine LaBamba]

6. I wasn't addressing the legality

It was the utter lack of morality that I found interesting.

[sandnsea]

7. Because they have no morals

Their willingness to do business in the Marianas is evidence of that. That and the rest of the places around the world with sweat shops and sex slaves and all the rest.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

9. They're not amoral, which is

the absence of morals.

They're immoral, and we both know what THAT is.

[sandnsea]

13. Yes, they are amoral

They have no morals. Any that they pretend to have is only so they can hide the fact that they'd fuck their mothers for a buck, probably literally as well as figuratively. No Morals.

[Idealism]

2. This is the same reason why Wall Street almost went down

Because everyone is so busy piling up money that no one cared why or how

[Pale Blue Dot]

8. Almost?

You act like you think this is over. Its only just beginning.

[Idealism]

10. I am saying currently hasn't gone down

The future, who knows when it will, but I think it will just keep getting propped up by the government

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. The crook's crook.....

Neel KashKari and Bernie Madeoff.

These guys cannot be real.

This shit writes itself.

[CoffeeCat]

16. I want to know when the movie comes out...

Maybe Spielberg could make it.

/snark off

[depakid]

4. "another Wall Street player with a perfectly Dickensian name."

:rofl:

So true.

It's going to be very interesting to find out who was conspiring and colluding with Mr. Madoff. Should keep some attorneys working for a very long time.

[arikara]

11. I love one of the comments...

this ponzi scheme is too big to fail!!! bail out

:rofl:

[bertman]

12. As if we needed any more confirmation that these "big-time investors" are immoral greedheads.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

14. Jeebus. nt

[CoffeeCat]

15. They thought they got Gordon Gecko...

...instead they got Sammy the Snake.