Democratic Underground Latest Greatest Lobby Journals Search Options Help Login
Google

Madoff probe uncovers fresh scams

Printer-friendly format Printer-friendly format
Printer-friendly format Email this thread to a friend
Printer-friendly format Bookmark this thread
This topic is archived.
Home » Discuss » Latest Breaking News Donate to DU
 
WhiteTara Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-20-08 07:45 PM
Original message
Madoff probe uncovers fresh scams
Source: uk guardian

Investigators are unearthing more irregularities in the financial affairs of Bernard Madoff, the man who stunned America's wealthy elite when he allegedly admitted running the biggest investment scam in history.

Initially, it was thought he was running a simple pyramid scheme. But Steve Harbeck, head of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation and the receiver of Madoff's broker-dealer business, said the investigation had uncovered a trove of records stretching back at least 20 years. "We do not seem to be dealing with a traditional Ponzi scheme alone," said Harbeck. "Ponzi" frauds occur when the money from new investors is used to pay existing ones. "This seems to be something of a hybrid," Harbeck said, adding that the potential losses could be far greater than anyone first thought.

He was unable to elaborate on the types of fraud that were emerging. But sources close to the Madoff investigations suggested the trader may also have falsified tax documents and other records to show fake profits to his investors. Harbeck would only say: "It is just too early to say exactly what else was going on here."
snip
Harbeck said that under a traditional Ponzi scheme it was common to find that just as much cash had been paid out in fake profits to earlier investors as had been declared lost to newer investors. "But with this case being, as I said, a hybrid fraud, it is impossible to say how much has been paid out at this stage."

In the US, all those who have made profits from a fraudulent scheme must pay back their gains to the receiver seeking to compensate the victims who have lost money.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/dec/21/bernard-madoff-fraud-investment-scam



there's going to be a lot of wailing going on over this.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
ret5hd Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-20-08 07:55 PM
Response to Original message
1. Sounds to me that what they are REALLY saying is...
"This may have been a Ponzi scheme, but 2 facts make it different:

1) those investing in this fund were aware that SOMETHING was wrong. Most thought it was insider trading, but were glad to be invested due to the high returns being generated.

2) due to the elite nature of those individuals that profited, it will not be politically expedient to recover those funds to repay those that lost.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
sam sarrha Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-20-08 09:11 PM
Response to Reply #1
10. here is a major variable.. it is a sin to take money from a rich man, >>Link>>

http://doggo.tripod.com/doggchrisdomin.html
"..snip...This article is the documented story of how a political religious movement called Dominionism gained control of the Republican Party, then took over Congress, then took over the White House, and now is sealing the conversion of America to a theocracy by taking over the American Judiciary. It’s the story of why and how 'the wrath of God Almighty' will be unleashed against the middle class, against the poor, and against the elderly and sick of this nation by George W. Bush and his army of Republican Dominionist “rulers.”

As Antonin Scalia, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court explained a few months later, the Bible teaches and Christians believe '… that government …derives its moral authority from God. Government is the "minister of God" with powers to "revenge", to "execute wrath", including even wrath by the sword…
...snip"

"snip...Leo Strauss was born in 1899 and died in 1973. ... He is most famous for resuscitating Machiavelli and introducing his principles as the guiding philosophy of the neo-conservative movement. ... More than any other man, Strauss breathed upon conservatism, inspiring it to rise from its atrophied condition and its natural dislike of change and to embrace an unbounded new political ideology that rides on the back of a revolutionary steed, hailing even radical change; hence the name Neo-Conservatives.

Significantly, Dominionism is a form of Social Darwinism.<48> It inherently includes the religious belief that wealth-power is a sign of God’s election. That is, out of the masses of people and the multitude of nations, wealth, in and of itself, is thought to indicate God’s approval on men and nations whereas poverty and sickness reflect God’s disapproval.

(It was not until I read this article that I realized that this is a fundamental tenet of Dominionists.

Worldly wealth and power are signs of God's favor -- to attempt to limit or decrease one's wealth and power is to disrespect God.

On the contrary, God's elect on Earth are called upon to increase their wealth and power.

It is not sufficient for a man to be a millionaire, or for a country to have sovereignty within its borders -- a man must strive to increase his wealth as much as possible, and a Dominionist government's behavior toward its neighbors must be "invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity".

Furthermore, any attempt to decrease a person's or a country's wealth and power -- to take from the rich to give to the poor, to reduce military spending and power -- is a direct attack on God.)

If “Secular Humanists are the greatest threat to Christianity the world has ever known,” as theologian Francis Schaeffer claimed, then who are the Humanists? According to Dominionists, humanists are the folks who allow or encourage licentious behavior in America. They are the undisciplined revelers.

Put all the enemies of the Dominionists together, boil them down to liquid and bake them into the one single most highly derided and contaminated individual known to man, and you will have before you an image of the quintessential “liberal” -- one of those folks who wants to give liberally to the poor and needy -- who desires the welfare and happiness of all Americans -- who insists on safety regulations for your protection and who desires the preservation of your values -- those damnable people are the folks that must be reduced to powerlessness -- or worse: extinction. ...snip"
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
w4rma Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 12:28 AM
Response to Reply #10
26. Dominionism is no different from the Divine Right of Kings propaganda. (nt)
Edited on Sun Dec-21-08 12:28 AM by w4rma
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
sam sarrha Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 07:09 AM
Response to Reply #26
28. except they got the PeeOn's to actually believe it, Jeesus is now a Cargo Cult
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Baby Snooks Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 09:14 AM
Response to Reply #10
32. Not just the Republican Party...
Edited on Sun Dec-21-08 09:15 AM by Baby Snooks
Dominionism is merely religious-based oligarchy and the political reality is that both parties were "hijacked" and the only Democrats and Republicans in this country at this point are the fools who go to the polls believing there are Democrats and Republicans on the ballot. We have one party in this country. The Republicrat Party. The party of the oligarchists. The Dominionists. Whatever you want to call them. Whatever you do call them, they do not represent the people.

As for Bernie Madoff we will never know the truth and I doubt Bernie Madoff will ever tell us the truth. But the truth appears to be that as the economy worsened, he liquidated and put all the assets into the "money markets" including the overnight bond markets in order to continue paying the investors. Maybe he just lost it all. Or maybe someone made sure he lost it all. Quite a bit of that money the investors made supported causes that supported the people. And so quite a few of those causes can no longer support the people. Connect the dots.

Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
KoKo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-20-08 09:19 PM
Response to Reply #1
12. I think you Nailed IT! But, the Spin will be "Ponzi Scheme, Ponzi Scheme
and calls for BAIL OUT of all those innocents who knew something "didn't smell quite right" will be put aside...because they don't ever want to admit they suspected it was crooked and yet "what the hell" they were getting the money so ...why ask questions.

I find it hard to have sympathy for any of these folks. Except maybe those who got suckered in by their Brokers or the Investment Banks who were running those "Funds of Funds" all over the world that suckered folks in. But, that you had to have a "connection" with Bernie means that maybe some of those International Funds of Funds were clueing in "certain investors" that they would have a "opportunity of lifetime to get involved in the "GREAT Bernie's Scheme." So...are those folks really innocent or were they "tipped off" that getting into those funds was a "back door scheme" if Bernie had turned you down before? :shrug:

Whatever it was it seems that those who were investing were doing it for the very same "wrong reasons" that got us innocent "grunts" out here into having to bail out most of Wall Street's Invesment Banking Mistakes to "SAVE OUR ECONOMY! ...HAIR ON FIRE! GOTTA BAIL OUT! BAIL OUT! and our Dem Congress convened to rush this thing through...but it was the SENATE that is the biggest CROOK because the US HOUS REJECTED IT THE FIRST TIME...until Dodd and Schumer (aided by others) rammed it back through the House and they were forced (with honey pot legislation "earmarks" to pass the damned bit of crookery!)

Many DU'ers compared this Paulson "Hair on Fire" frenzy to George Tenant and Bush/Cheny/Rice carrying on about WMD! WMD! MUSHROOM CLOUDS...DIRTY BOMBS" that forced us into Iraq Invasion while knowing American Peasants were marching in the Hundreds of Thousands all over AMERICA (that the Mainstream Media refused to cover because we weren't violent enough) and all the rest is history.

Bush/Cheney/Rice and Neocons/Wall St. walk out the door or their RAPE OF AMERICA while we will pay the price on the heads of "working class folks" for a generation!

:-( It's what US Government is about these days. And...where is that "Constitution?" Sitting in some "sealed off, climate controlled room at the Library of Congress...like a rotting manuscript written on sheepskin from another century waiting for archaeologists to find in another thousand years.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
WriteDown Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-20-08 09:35 PM
Response to Reply #1
16. Ridiculous....
What they are saying is that some of the money was indeed treated as a traditional fund and it was not a straight Ponzi. I am also curious who extactly did profit. You'd have to be with the fund for a LONG time in order to make back your principal and actually make a profit before the scheme fell apart.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
aquart Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-20-08 09:40 PM
Response to Reply #1
17. No, you read that elsewhere.
Hopefully not with the same lack of reading comprehension.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Acadia Blue Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-20-08 09:55 PM
Response to Reply #1
19. They are just thieves. Pigs. And its getting worse all the time as they
are stealing everything. Being really rich is not enough, because they want everything. They want a Mexican type subsistence economy here with 2 classes. One of few rich and lots of starving peasants.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
sarcasmo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 10:28 AM
Response to Reply #19
36. Exactly, you have the super rich and the rest of us are serfs.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
valerief Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-20-08 10:45 PM
Response to Reply #1
21. EXACTLY! That's what I was reading into this. nt
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
depakid Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-20-08 08:05 PM
Response to Original message
2. This is going to keep an army of lawyers busy for many years to come
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
TomInTib Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-20-08 08:20 PM
Response to Reply #2
3. The lawyers will be the ones making money off of this thing.
Funny how that works, isn't it?
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
depakid Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-20-08 08:29 PM
Response to Reply #3
4. Accountants are going to have a field day too
Especially these folks:

National Association of Forensic Accountants

http://www.nafanet.com/

(If people had used their services more often over the past 8+ years, we might not have gotten into this mess in the first place).

Yep- funny how that works....
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Acadia Blue Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-20-08 09:57 PM
Response to Reply #3
20. Better the lawyers make money so these pigs are exposed for
the filth that is their character. Morally bankrupt and filthy rich.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Frank Booth Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 02:52 AM
Response to Reply #2
27. Who's going to pay the lawyers, and who will the lawyers go after?
There doesn't seem to be much upside for anyone here.

I imagine Madoff's "fund" was heavily leveraged -- he was probably paying investors with money from loans in addition to the usual Ponzi distributions.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
The Backlash Cometh Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-20-08 09:02 PM
Response to Original message
5. Can someone give my thread one more kick?
I have compiled all day a list of articles on the foundations affected. I don't understand why people don't get how devastating this is.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4689415&mesg_id=4689415
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
sarcasmo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-20-08 09:04 PM
Response to Reply #5
6. The real question is how many more Madoff type scams are around waiting to be exposed.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
The Backlash Cometh Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-20-08 09:06 PM
Response to Reply #6
7. I don't even want to venture to answer that.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
DallasNE Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-20-08 11:57 PM
Response to Reply #6
24. You Know, When You Telegraph
That you are going to cut the budget for white collar crime enforcement you can be sure that there are plenty of while collar criminals out there lurking and waiting for golden opportunities. This is just another of those events that have been both predictable and predicted.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
depakid Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-20-08 09:10 PM
Response to Reply #5
9. Of course its devastating- but the lesson here
Edited on Sat Dec-20-08 09:11 PM by depakid
is that the foundations, their directors, boards and advisors were negligent and breached their fiduciary duties by failing to perform due dilligence (or in some cases, to diversify their holdings).

That's one of the angles that's going to be keeping the lawyers busy- and is likely causing a lot of nailbiting among the insurers who wriote the D & O and E & O coverage for all of the folks connected with this monumental fiasco.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
The Backlash Cometh Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-20-08 09:17 PM
Response to Reply #9
11. This has been going on for at least twenty years.
I think, from what I've seen, it's all based on relationships. Networking. Trust. I don't think Madoff was handing out annual statements like everyone else did, but he did hand out cash, money, results. So, think about this. If someone has been making money for twenty years, even if it all crashes now, didn't they have more to gain in the long run?
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
depakid Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-20-08 09:29 PM
Response to Reply #11
15. Indeed it has- the NY Times piece was illuminating on that
Edited on Sat Dec-20-08 09:29 PM by depakid
A few snips:

1. Not everyone got taken in (i.e., they performed due dilligence)

A spokeswoman for the New York Community Trust, Ani Hurwitz, recalled a Long Island couple who asked the trust in 1994 to invest their proposed $20 million fund with Mr. Madoff. “We have an investment committee that oversees all investments, and they couldn’t get anything out of him, no information, nothing,” Ms. Hurwitz said. “So we told the donors we wouldn’t do it.”

But many charities did entrust their money to Mr. Madoff, to their eventual grief. The North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System, for instance, reported that it had lost $5.7 million on an investment with Mr. Madoff that was made at the donor’s behest. (That donor has pledged to cover the loss for the hospital system, its spokesman said.)


2. Apparently he did provide statements of some sort- which also should have raised suspicions (at least, to honest and ethical professionals who weren't simply seeking to cash in on whatever scam he'd been running).

Mr. Madoff’s higher profile in the highly competitive world of hedge fund management intensified the skepticism about his remarkably consistent returns. Rival money managers complained that when they sought to replicate his trading strategy based on the statements the Madoff firm sent its clients, they found it wasn’t possible.

There was a scattering of inconclusive regulatory investigations — efforts so unavailing that the chairman of the S.E.C. in Washington has ordered an internal investigation to determine how the agency could have missed so many red flags and ignored so many credible complaints over the years.

But foreign regulators were not any quicker to notice Mr. Madoff’s oddities — or the rapidly expanding pool of money entrusted to the various feeder funds he serviced,


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/20/business/20madoff.html?pagewanted=1&em

Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
acmavm Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 07:18 PM
Response to Reply #15
38. I'm laughing my ass of right now. Shit, get this...
<snip>

There was a scattering of inconclusive regulatory investigations — efforts so unavailing that the chairman of the S.E.C. in Washington has ordered an internal investigation to determine how the agency could have missed so many red flags and ignored so many credible complaints over the years.

<snip>

'missed' so many red flags? 'ignored' credible complaints?

Yeah, the bush** admin has been so great about flushing out criminals on Wall Street!

Sheesh.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
dixiegrrrrl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-20-08 09:07 PM
Response to Original message
8. Ponzi+Enron+ S and L +...
Interesting it "goes back 20 years". Just about the time the crooks in congress threw out the money rules.

Wonder how many Madoff type schemes remain unexposed as of yet.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Baby Snooks Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 09:17 AM
Response to Reply #8
33. And who signed the bill that threw the money rules out?
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
earth mom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-20-08 09:21 PM
Response to Original message
13. Madoff is a crook of EPIC proportions, yet they give him house arrest.
:wtf:
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
sam sarrha Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-20-08 09:25 PM
Response to Reply #13
14. he is a rich mam, dominionists respect gods proof of favor to him....
http://doggo.tripod.com/doggchrisdomin.html
"..snip...This article is the documented story of how a political religious movement called Dominionism gained control of the Republican Party, then took over Congress, then took over the White House, and now is sealing the conversion of America to a theocracy by taking over the American Judiciary. It’s the story of why and how 'the wrath of God Almighty' will be unleashed against the middle class, against the poor, and against the elderly and sick of this nation by George W. Bush and his army of Republican Dominionist “rulers.”

As Antonin Scalia, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court explained a few months later, the Bible teaches and Christians believe '… that government …derives its moral authority from God. Government is the "minister of God" with powers to "revenge", to "execute wrath", including even wrath by the sword…
...snip"

"snip...Leo Strauss was born in 1899 and died in 1973. ... He is most famous for resuscitating Machiavelli and introducing his principles as the guiding philosophy of the neo-conservative movement. ... More than any other man, Strauss breathed upon conservatism, inspiring it to rise from its atrophied condition and its natural dislike of change and to embrace an unbounded new political ideology that rides on the back of a revolutionary steed, hailing even radical change; hence the name Neo-Conservatives.

Significantly, Dominionism is a form of Social Darwinism.<48> It inherently includes the religious belief that wealth-power is a sign of God’s election. That is, out of the masses of people and the multitude of nations, wealth, in and of itself, is thought to indicate God’s approval on men and nations whereas poverty and sickness reflect God’s disapproval.

(It was not until I read this article that I realized that this is a fundamental tenet of Dominionists.

Worldly wealth and power are signs of God's favor -- to attempt to limit or decrease one's wealth and power is to disrespect God.

On the contrary, God's elect on Earth are called upon to increase their wealth and power.

It is not sufficient for a man to be a millionaire, or for a country to have sovereignty within its borders -- a man must strive to increase his wealth as much as possible, and a Dominionist government's behavior toward its neighbors must be "invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity".

Furthermore, any attempt to decrease a person's or a country's wealth and power -- to take from the rich to give to the poor, to reduce military spending and power -- is a direct attack on God.)

If “Secular Humanists are the greatest threat to Christianity the world has ever known,” as theologian Francis Schaeffer claimed, then who are the Humanists? According to Dominionists, humanists are the folks who allow or encourage licentious behavior in America. They are the undisciplined revelers.

Put all the enemies of the Dominionists together, boil them down to liquid and bake them into the one single most highly derided and contaminated individual known to man, and you will have before you an image of the quintessential “liberal” -- one of those folks who wants to give liberally to the poor and needy -- who desires the welfare and happiness of all Americans -- who insists on safety regulations for your protection and who desires the preservation of your values -- those damnable people are the folks that must be reduced to powerlessness -- or worse: extinction. ...snip"
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Celebration Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-20-08 11:30 PM
Response to Reply #14
23. LOL I don't think Madoff is a Dominionist n/t
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
sam sarrha Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 07:11 AM
Response to Reply #23
29. they have infiltrated the principals into the culture, dont have to be one to believe it, Jeesus is
now a Cargo Cult.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
ChairmanAgnostic Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 09:18 AM
Response to Reply #14
34. if he only stole some gannie's SS check, he'd be
in prison. When you steal billions, you are entitled to the life of RIley.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
sam sarrha Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 10:34 AM
Response to Reply #34
37. it is the ReThuglicans Brainwashinh. by unconsciouslly framing that rich people are godly privilaged
people where i work wear F'n Tee Shirts with these religious slogans on them.. POOR BLACK PEOPLE wear them.. Jeesus is a Cargo Cult.!!
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
proud progressive Donating Member (358 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-20-08 09:43 PM
Response to Original message
18. there can't be 50b in victims, can there?
for sure bernie doesn't have it. the 50b must include 'interest payments' over all these years. yes? and what about those who pulled their money out, when, and why, and how much?
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
peacetalksforall Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-20-08 11:03 PM
Response to Original message
22. What your are all saying here - is that the Madoff operation had total IRS exemption?
Edited on Sat Dec-20-08 11:03 PM by higher class
If not, what did he do about the IRS? Were there IRS documents sent out? Did the IRS audit them? It seems they must have had excemption or something would have shown up somewhere? I'd like to learn how everyone kept up with the IRS and no patterns emerged?

A reminder - poor common folks who lose their house (most of them) have to pay taxes even when all is lost?

Next to last question - how do all the people who swindled expect to live a normal life?

Last question - where is the boy genius who wrote the programs that allowed their silent office programs - automated deal making with minimum of human intervention. The young guy (Josh?) who was featured in the videotaped interview - (Home page on DU about two weeks aog) - the one sitting next to Madoff - a 'documentary' from about two years ago where the two of them (kind of) explained their operation?
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
customerserviceguy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 12:14 AM
Response to Original message
25. None of us
have any more reason to have a single shred worth of faith in the statements we get from our banks, our credit unions, and our 401K plan administrators. They're all just ink put on pretty pieces of paper, worth no more than the integrity of those who tell the computer to produce them.

And two weeks ago, Bernie Madoff was considered among the most trustworthy of those sending out the pretty papers.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
NJCher Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Dec-22-08 12:59 AM
Response to Reply #25
39. actually
that's not so true.

In some of the articles I've read, I've learned that Madoff only sent out quarterly statements. Furthermore, in numerous articles and on television, I've heard people complain that they couldn't make sense of the statements. They didn't have enough information in them and the trades weren't clear.

So it appears his fake statements weren't even done very well.

I got out a couple of my own brokerage statements to examine how difficult it would be to dummy one up in Photoshop. I wouldn't want to try it. The statements are full of legalese printed in mouse type (on the back). There are all kinds codes and abbreviations that I just don't understand. Maybe the explanation is in the mouse type but I don't have the patience to go that far with it.

It appears, though, that Bernie thought he could get away with a simplified, Mickey Mouse statement and it appears he did get away with it.

This makes this crime all the more astonishing and it also calls into question how the taxes were dealt with, as higher class points out above. After all, these were people who've received more than a few statements from financial houses in their time.



Cher
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
JCMach1 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 08:14 AM
Response to Original message
30. He even managed to scam Abu Dhabi out of as much as 100million $
He scammed EVERYBODY!
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
NashVegas Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 08:23 AM
Response to Original message
31. I Have To Wonder - At What Point Do They Find Him Funding a Drug Trade?
Just sayin' ...
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Waiting For Everyman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 10:15 AM
Response to Original message
35. Harry Markopolos raised red flags to the SEC in 2005. (link)
Click fullscreen to read it...

http://www.slideshare.net/hblodget/markopolos-madoff-complaint-presentation?type=document

Basically his report to the SEC shows mathematically that Madoff couldn't have made more than a 1% retun, investing as he claimed to.

Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
NJCher Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Dec-22-08 02:21 AM
Response to Reply #35
40. highly recommended
He's funny and irreverent. Comes right out and calls BM a liar, crook, and a fraud.

I read the entire document and not once was I bored or wishing it was near the end.

Sounds like a lot of people knew Madoff was a fraud.

Goldman Sachs and Citigroup kept their distance from Madoff for a reason. And yes, there were people who looked at Madoff's operation and walked away, saying it was too secretive and didn't add up.



Cher
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
SOS Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Dec-22-08 06:49 PM
Response to Original message
41. A peculiar tidbit from the Madoff scandal:
From today's NYT:

"The district attorney has also begun inquiries into Friehling & Horowitz, the three-person accounting firm that provided services to Mr. Madoff’s firm. Many have asked how a company as small as Friehling — a three-employee firm based in New City, N.Y., that occupies a 13-foot-by-18-foot storefront space in an office plaza — could have handled an operation as large as Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities."

His "accounting firm" was three guys working out of a tiny storefront.

The SEC is really doing a great job. Nothing suspicious going on here.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
DU AdBot (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view 
this author's profile Click to add 
this author to your buddy list Click to add 
this author to your Ignore list Mon Feb 10th 2025, 10:03 PM
Response to Original message
Advertisements [?]
 Top

Home » Discuss » Latest Breaking News Donate to DU

Powered by DCForum+ Version 1.1 Copyright 1997-2002 DCScripts.com
Software has been extensively modified by the DU administrators


Important Notices: By participating on this discussion board, visitors agree to abide by the rules outlined on our Rules page. Messages posted on the Democratic Underground Discussion Forums are the opinions of the individuals who post them, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Democratic Underground, LLC.

Home  |  Discussion Forums  |  Journals |  Store  |  Donate

About DU  |  Contact Us  |  Privacy Policy

Got a message for Democratic Underground? Click here to send us a message.

© 2001 - 2011 Democratic Underground, LLC