The rich are eating themselves.

[autorank]

Here's a "respected" U.S. financial wizard running a Ponzi scheme defrauding major investors and banks around the world. And the cry is, we can't invest in projects "regulated" in the United States. Way to go Bush, Republicans, sleeping Congress. Even Sen. Lautenberg (D-NJ) had his charitable foundation's assets wiped out by this creep.

Alleged Madoff fraud has worldwide exposure

By JOE BEL BRUNO and JANE WARDELL, AP Business Writers Joe Bel Bruno And Jane Wardell, Ap Business Writers 13 mins ago
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081215/ap_on_bi_ge/wall_street_arrest

NEW YORK – The list of investors who say they were duped in one of Wall Street's biggest Ponzi schemes is growing, snaring some of the world's biggest banking institutions and hedge funds, the super rich and the famous, pensioners and charities.

Snip

The 70-year-old Madoff (MAY-doff), well respected in the investment community after serving as chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market, was arrested Thursday in what prosecutors say was a $50 billion scheme to defraud investors. Some investors claim they've been wiped out, while others are still likely to come forward.

Snip

"I think now it is very difficult for people to invest in things that are meant to be regulated in America, because they haven fallen down in the job," Nicola Horlick, the manager of Bramdean Alternatives, which has 9 percent of its funds invested in Madoff's scheme, told the British Broadcasting Corp.

New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg, one of the wealthiest members of the Senate, entrusted his family's charitable foundation to Madoff. Lautenberg's attorney, Michael Griffinger, said they weren't yet sure the extent of the foundation's losses, but that the bulk of its investments had been handled by Madoff.

Snip

Among those overseas confirming exposure on Monday, Banco Santander, the largest bank in the euro zone by market capitalization, said its clients have 2.33 billion euros ($3.07 billion) in exposure with Madoff, mostly through a fund called Optimal Strategic US Equity.

[baldguy]

1. When Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks, he said "Because that's where the money is."

[autorank]

17. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely n/t

[roguevalley]

30. his sons turned him in. he says he stole 50 billion and he's broke.

god. all. mighty.

[Greyhound]

2. Idiot. He should have known you're only allowed to ruin "little people's" lives with impunity.

He broke the covenant and will pay a heavy price.

[autorank]

26. He's a modern ..... Hood

Have to leave the "Robin" out since he robbed form the rich to give to the rich, himself.

[entanglement]

34. Precisely my response on the other thread...somebody was offended by it, though

:shrug:

[supernova]

3. This will keep international money away from US markets

for a nice long while.

Nice job asshole.

I hope he has to live in the State Pen for the next twenty years, peeling potatoes and cleaning toilets for 50 cents/hour.

[autorank]

18. "Cascade of ruin"

That's what Bush set off. I can't even imagine what would be going on right now if
McCain had won.

Thanks to Bush, there will be a virtual embargo on us for a good while. Mission Accomplished.

[wolfgangmo]

35. And then ...

... we should ship his ass overseas for another term in the EU, Russia, Asia, and then the mid east. By the time the sentence is over his great grand children should still be in jail.

[JPZenger]

4. Was an Unregulated Hedge Fund

This was basically an unregulated hedge fund. When Donovan, the head of the SEC, tried to regulate hedge funds in circa 2004, he was fired by the SEC board, at the request of politically powerful people.

If the returns from one investment fund are so much higher than any other investments, there's probably a good reason. I wonder if they will try to recapture any money from anyone who was paid an outrageous return at the early stage of this Ponzi scheme.

[brentspeak]

6. Who's Donovan?

Do have any links on this guy?

[Skidmore]

5. Wanna know what things aren't regulated....

How many Senators and Congressmen like Lautenberg do we have? Are the only people capable of governing in this "meritocracy" the wealthy?

[4_TN_TITANS]

7. Now we can expect some action...

the wrong people got burned on this one.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

8. or, for once, the RIGHT people

;)

[Danascot]

39. That's my hope too

That some congress-critters or other politically influential people got burned by Made-off and there'll be indignant cries for regulations with teeth this time.

But in my more cynical moments I wonder how long it will be before Paulson and Bush decide Madoff is "too big to fail" and bails out all the wealthy unfortunates. After all, the only difference between Madoff and the folks who have gotten bailout billions so far is that Madoff admits he's a crook (and that only because he probably suffers from dementia).

[formercia]

9. Banco Santander

The 'boys' own that one. Bweaks my wittle hawt.

[autorank]

19. That is a shame

The boys need to keep an eye on this. Looks a little like a house of cards.

Embattled Santander to cut 1,900 jobs at its three British banks
• Losses are 8% of Spanish group's UK workforce
• Deepest cuts expected at Alliance & Leicester
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/dec/13/santander-banking-jobs-redundancies

Santander added to the gloom in the finance industry yesterday when it announced a cull of 1,900 jobs in its three British businesses - Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley.

The Spanish bank said the axe would fall on staff based at offices in London, Leicester and Bradford. Unions said the job cuts, which are equivalent to 8% of Santander's 23,000 UK workforce, were "a bitter blow" before Christmas. Officials were particularly dismayed that the bank refused to rule out compulsory redundancies.

Santander also felt a chill wind from investors who signaled their disappointment with the bank's performance by sending its shares down 6% to 579p at the close of trading. Shares in the bank have halved since June, when they were trading above £11.

In the summer, the bank was riding high on reports that it would emerge from the credit storm better placed than rivals, despite strong signals that the British and Spanish economies were heading for recession.

The purchases of Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley's savings business were initially viewed positively, but investors began to sell when it became clear Santander was reliant for much of its profits on two of Europe's economies worst hit by the credit crunch.

[formercia]

22. Get too far ahead of the envelope

and step on their crank.

[Laelth]

10. 'bout time for the rich to learn, again, that deregulation is a BAD idea.

Tragic that we, on the left, have been telling them this for years, but they refused to listen. Watch me cry them a river.

The United States is a LIBERAL Country.

:dem:

-Laelth

[gratuitous]

11. But the money fund managers who threw money into this Ponzi Scheme

All the money fund managers who threw money down this nicely-upholstered toilet got their full fee and didn't think twice about it. "Due diligence"? This is Bernard Madoff! He's one of us! This investment is as safe as houses.

[bvar22]

12. Isn't that just like the RICH .....selfish .....selfish.....

....selfish.
Here they are....eating themselves in front of everybody and not sharing anything.
I would like a nice, juicy, fat marbled drumstick from some Trust Fund Baby.....
but Nooooooooo.
I Work for a Living, so I gotta eat cows and birds....Eating the RICH is too good for me.

Selfish...selfish....selfish.

Momma always said that if you're going to eat in front of someone, you should bring enough for everybody,
and that's the TRUTH.

[blindpig]

28. Guess we'll just hafta get our own.

Long pig for the masses.

[Hubert Flottz]

13. The Kenny Boys will be ooozing out of the woodwork for years

after Bush and Cox are in South America on the pig ranch with all the loot.

[autorank]

25. Yep

They'll be relaxing then the constabulary will show up to let them know there's been change of government and the extradition papers have gone through. "No time to pack your bags, come along;)"

[Patiod]

14. The name is MAY-off?

I've been reading it Mad-off.

But it's MAY-off, as in "He MAY-off with all their money"?

Yikes

[autorank]

33. Very good - a nick name is born - "Made Off" ran this Ponzi scheme and made of with the dough;)

:hide:

[DainBramaged]

15. Madoff is 70, they can do NOTHING to him that matters, nothing

He will go down in history, and the rich will be licking their wounds for decades.

[wolfgangmo]

37. Change the law.

Put him, all his decendents and relatives, friends, associates, and their families in jail for 7 generations.

Or we could get real medieval on their asses and just make sure that their genetics are removed from the pool. Kill them all. Every person who shares his genetics.

[Thothmes]

38. Thats how Hitler saw it.

Maybe you would feel more comfortabe over at the Free Republic web site. Your thought processes seem to mesh with theirs very well.

[formercia]

16. Bank Julius Baer

http://www.reuters.com/article/bankingFinancial/idUSLF72532320081215

--snip--

RBS said its potential loss could amount to some 400 million pounds ($595 million), if it assumed that the value of its assets in market-making firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC were nil. Man Group estimated its exposure at $360 million.

--snip--

One of the principals in Man Group is Bank Julius Baer.

Now, where have we heard that name before?

These guys are thick as thieves.

[autorank]

20. They have something against the truth

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Bank_Julius_Baer

[formercia]

21. Birds of a feather...

http://www.crocodyl.org/wiki/julius_baer_group

A Julius Baer fake annuity scheme costs a rock star manager $22 million

A Julius Baer operation in partnership with SwissPartners (both in Zurich and Grand Cayman) offered clients the chance to escape taxes by paying millions for annuity premiums which in fact were deposited in offshore funds that would earn clients money they could choose not to report to home tax authorities. At least one of the clients got burned.

Tony Defries, the rock manager who launched David Bowie, bought into the scheme and invested, ie paid an annuity premium of $22 million. Unfortunately for Defries, the money managers weren’t properly monitoring investments. In 2000, the bubble broke and dot.coms crashed. Defries said "sell," but his money managers failed to pull out of those stocks, and Defries lost his investment.

He filed a civil complaint in 2003 in federal court in Virginia, where he was then living in a mansion in the hunt country, charging SwissPartners, Julius Baer Bank and a collection of other defendants with “securities and insurance fraud.” The suit was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.

--snip--

[autorank]

23. Guess somebody got nervous

Reuters
http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/081205/business_us_juliusbaer.html
Bank Julius Baer CEO dies unexpectedly
Friday December 5, 9:44 am ET

By Katie Reid

ZURICH (Reuters) - Alex Widmer, the chief executive of Bank Julius Baer (VTX:BAER.VX - News) and a well respected figure in Swiss private banking, has died unexpectedly at the age of 52, the bank said.

A source told Reuters he had been informed by close friends of Widmer's family that the banker had committed suicide.

Swiss news website 20Minuten cited two unnamed independent sources as saying it was a case of suicide.

Swiss police declined to comment on the death.

[formercia]

24. He saw it coming

This whole private banking network is rotten to the core.

It's like the old shell game. Instead of a pea, it's money. They move it from bank to bank until it disappears.

[autorank]

40. Vanishing cash;) rented, only for a time.

[Mike 03]

27. The rich have stopped spending or accruing credit, just like everybody else.

That is one of the causes for the current crisis. Everybody is waking up. Rich, Poor, it doesn't matter. Check out Sotherby's

[autorank]

32. Big biz in consignment shops, fot those who can buy

That's what I sniffed out at the start of the subprime crisis. There were major players who were investing in that garbage. I thought, hey, these guys have gone nuts. The Money Party to Citizens: Drop Dead

They're packaging risky loans, called "subprime," and selling them as primo investments. What's that all about. They've gone over the top and Madoff is another proof. What did he think was going to happen? Why did those people lay it on the line with him?

If we could get the major banks and investors around a table and have them cancel their debt based on fantasy, then we might get back to normal quicker. We're just at the start here and I expect a truth explosion once Obama gets in. I'm quite sure that PTB wanted to delay this until after the inauguration to shift blame. But they couldn't. Too bad for them. Events will drive policy and there's a rational individual at the top.

[SoCalDem]

29. Too bad all these "charitable foundations" hadn't been actually GIVING

the funds to poor folks, all along.. That would have been a better use of the money..

"Investment" is just a genteel word for GAMBLING..

[sarcasmo]

31. Good to see them eat themselves.

[deaniac21]

36. Yes, they will soon be extinct.