Independent UK: Madoff: The man who sold the world

[marmar]

Madoff: The man who sold the world
The list of Bernard Madoff's fraud victims grows ever longer. Now investigators want to know if he acted alone. Rupert Cornwell reports from Washington

Sunday, 21 December 2008


Could there be a more appropriately awful end to the most awful year for American capitalism since the Great Depression? The scam operated by Bernard Madoff, once a man above all suspicion on Wall Street, is not only one of the largest frauds – maybe the largest – in US history. It is also a perfect metaphor for the ills and excesses that have brought the country's financial system and economy to their present wretched pass.

Since Mr Madoff's arrest on 11 December the list of those duped by the unfailingly lavish returns offered to investors in the Madoff Investment Fund has grown steadily longer. As befits this globalised age, the victims come from every continent. They include not just some of the world's largest banks and hedge funds, but also private individuals and smaller organisations, among them charities run by celebrities such as Steven Spielberg – even it appears, the pension fund of our own Hampshire County Council, on the hook for £7m.

Mr Madoff's Jewish community has been especially hard hit, none more so than Carl Shapiro, his long-time friend, who introduced him to many of his future investors in the exclusive resort of Palm Beach, Florida, where they and many rich northeasterners spend the winter. Mr Shapiro and his charitable foundation may have lost more than $500m (£340m), in a fraud estimated at anything up to $50bn in all.

The final 10 days of the annus horribilis of 2008 may bring, if not comfort, at least some elucidation. The 70-year-old Mr Madoff, a former chairman of the Nasdaq stock exchange and a figure once credited with securing a better deal for ordinary investors, is free on $10m bail, but under effective house arrest at his apartment in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. In the meantime, he has been ordered to produce by year's end a detailed list of his assets and liabilities – a first clue to discovering how much money has been lost and what, if anything, is left. ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/madoff-the-man-who-sold-the-world-1206091.html

[jimshoes]

1. Who wants to bet he'll be joining Ken Lay

on his own little island near Dubai soon. All his billions in tow.

[bemildred]

2. Wall Street in general is a fraud.

If one allows it is not completely rigged, it is obviously manipulated and gamed all the time.

[rock]

3. Greed, by definition

has no limits.