Site search
sponsored by
News
In my opinion, Bernie Madoff should not go to jail. President Obama should pardon him and appoint him as secretary of the treasury.
This man is the current king of chutzpah (noun.slang - def: unmitigated effrontery or impudence; gall, audacity, nerve) and that's just Mr. Webster's opinion.
To be a little more direct, Gordon Geckko, in the movie, “Wall Street” in 1987, made a comment that became immediately famous, “Greed is good.” To many, too many, that appears to be not only a true statement but a mission as well as a desirable lifestyle.
I find it humorous, if not tragic that the term “ponzi scheme” was actually coined in 1921when Charles Ponzi was the first to gain notoriety for this type of “public bilking.”
The original Ponzi took in millions while promising an unbelievable 40 percent return when the current bank savings accounts were paying 5 percent, but he was actually paying out very little, to keep the rumors flowing, and in reality, had made a real investment of about $30.
Now, almost a century later, we have, it appears, learned very little about the workings of greed. I say greed because the investors are historically not poor people looking for a little boost in their financial life, but almost without exception, people with already substantial wealth simply looking for more.
Unfortunately, among those are many worthwhile foundations and institutions that are just as easily bilked. But even with them, the golden, golden rule should apply: “if it looks too good to be true, bet your bippy it is.”
If Mr. Madoff is the criminal here, what then of those people who flocked to him with their money, believing in returns astronomically beyond reality or even legitimacy? Do they not share some of the guilt? Could these apparently intelligent people really believe that they found the one guy smarter than everyone else in the world?
Count on it, they couldn't care less. As our Mr. Geckko would say, “Show me the money!”
Now these fleeced souls are looking for someone to sue. Looking back on their motives at the time, pity for their plight is hard to come by (orphanages and worthwhile institutions being the exception).
Bernie is off to the slammer, but that does not put an end to this drama. Where is the money? One does not just lose billions of dollars like losing a wallet at the ball game. Someone, or someones, wound up with a ton of loot. What of the pension funds, feeder funds, charities, orphans, etc., that were to share in the wealth? Where is the money? Show me the money?
Just for fun, try counting to a billion. If you were born yesterday, you couldn't do it in a lifetime. How does anyone lose billions of dollars? I cannot conceive of how that can be done. One could buy Bosnia for a fraction of that amount, and losing it wouldn't be that big a deal.
What role do you believe our government played in this little drama?
As reported by Joe Nocera in his column “Executive Suite” for the New York Times, “Did the SEC (your governmental watchdogs) bless Madoff? Yes! Yes! There were investors who called the agency and asked if he was legitimate.
Do you know its response? ‘Bernard Madoff is the greatest.' and ‘He is good to go.' Your tax dollars at work!”
So, in the end, where are we at? For most of us ordinary folk, right where we started, reading about the rich and famous, some of whom are not quite as rich or as famous as they were last week.
Mr. Madoff is off to the slammer, where at the tender age of 71 he might be a tab too old to become a boy toy and therefore can spend his waking hours reminiscing about the good old days, while his wife, poor wife, can get busy on her “salvage” job of retaining her “hard-earned” wealth, which according to her had nothing to do with his machinations or schemes.
After all, he never filled her in, did he? Old Bernie might pick up a few sheckles among his newfound friends shelling out stock tips.
Go Bernie, go. Write a book!
Alan M. Aarons
Edwards
This man is the current king of chutzpah (noun.slang - def: unmitigated effrontery or impudence; gall, audacity, nerve) and that's just Mr. Webster's opinion.
To be a little more direct, Gordon Geckko, in the movie, “Wall Street” in 1987, made a comment that became immediately famous, “Greed is good.” To many, too many, that appears to be not only a true statement but a mission as well as a desirable lifestyle.
I find it humorous, if not tragic that the term “ponzi scheme” was actually coined in 1921when Charles Ponzi was the first to gain notoriety for this type of “public bilking.”
The original Ponzi took in millions while promising an unbelievable 40 percent return when the current bank savings accounts were paying 5 percent, but he was actually paying out very little, to keep the rumors flowing, and in reality, had made a real investment of about $30.
Now, almost a century later, we have, it appears, learned very little about the workings of greed. I say greed because the investors are historically not poor people looking for a little boost in their financial life, but almost without exception, people with already substantial wealth simply looking for more.
Unfortunately, among those are many worthwhile foundations and institutions that are just as easily bilked. But even with them, the golden, golden rule should apply: “if it looks too good to be true, bet your bippy it is.”
If Mr. Madoff is the criminal here, what then of those people who flocked to him with their money, believing in returns astronomically beyond reality or even legitimacy? Do they not share some of the guilt? Could these apparently intelligent people really believe that they found the one guy smarter than everyone else in the world?
Count on it, they couldn't care less. As our Mr. Geckko would say, “Show me the money!”
Now these fleeced souls are looking for someone to sue. Looking back on their motives at the time, pity for their plight is hard to come by (orphanages and worthwhile institutions being the exception).
Bernie is off to the slammer, but that does not put an end to this drama. Where is the money? One does not just lose billions of dollars like losing a wallet at the ball game. Someone, or someones, wound up with a ton of loot. What of the pension funds, feeder funds, charities, orphans, etc., that were to share in the wealth? Where is the money? Show me the money?
Just for fun, try counting to a billion. If you were born yesterday, you couldn't do it in a lifetime. How does anyone lose billions of dollars? I cannot conceive of how that can be done. One could buy Bosnia for a fraction of that amount, and losing it wouldn't be that big a deal.
What role do you believe our government played in this little drama?
As reported by Joe Nocera in his column “Executive Suite” for the New York Times, “Did the SEC (your governmental watchdogs) bless Madoff? Yes! Yes! There were investors who called the agency and asked if he was legitimate.
Do you know its response? ‘Bernard Madoff is the greatest.' and ‘He is good to go.' Your tax dollars at work!”
So, in the end, where are we at? For most of us ordinary folk, right where we started, reading about the rich and famous, some of whom are not quite as rich or as famous as they were last week.
Mr. Madoff is off to the slammer, where at the tender age of 71 he might be a tab too old to become a boy toy and therefore can spend his waking hours reminiscing about the good old days, while his wife, poor wife, can get busy on her “salvage” job of retaining her “hard-earned” wealth, which according to her had nothing to do with his machinations or schemes.
After all, he never filled her in, did he? Old Bernie might pick up a few sheckles among his newfound friends shelling out stock tips.
Go Bernie, go. Write a book!
Alan M. Aarons
Edwards
