Ponzi Madoff
January 21st, 2009
Brutus killed Caesar, Lancelot nailed King Arthur’s gal, and Sammy "The Bull" Gravano rolled on Gotti, but bilking $51 billion from friends, associates, and non-profits? Well that, my friends, is a dick move of prodigious proportions. Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, the largest in history, has decimated banks, hedge funds and driven one individual to suicide. This is a guy that would fart in your closet while drinking your last beer then tell you he just stopped by to say "hi."
Even more baffling is the fact that these so-called savvy investors believed Madoff’s fictitious double-digit returns year after year, enough for many to give him everything they had. This type of foolish optimism could be called “irrational exuberance” or, as the workingman would call it: $hit house crazy.
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1963
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The year of the Great Salad Oil Swindle. Crooked commodities trader Tino De Angelis cost investors $150 million by financing a salad oil that did not exist. The esteemed American Express was the biggest mark in this scandal losing $58 million and watching their credibility – and stock price – tumble. Wow, salad oil. Those swinging 60’s… |
Whoever is detected in a shameful fraud is ever after not believed. Even if they speak the truth.
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Ole Bernie is going to have a hard time finding inmates to play Marco Polo with in the prison pool. “He’s got his eye open, Skilling!”
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Feeder Fund
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noun. 1. A fund that solely conducts investing through another fund (called the master fund).
When the master fund goes bad, guess what happens to the feeder funds? Word of Madoff’s arrest had the same effect on hedge fund managers as “the brown acid is bad!” cry had on head trippers at Woodstock: ”Oh man…too late!”
Sucker Punched: Prominent Patsies Madoff Has Taken Down
| Steven Spielberg | Film Director |
| Sen. Frank Lautenberg | New Jersey State Senator |
| Jeffrey Katzenberg | Co-founder of Dreamworks |
| Leonard Feinstein | Founder of Bed Bath and Beyond |
| Sal Katz | Co-owner of the NY Mets |
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Intelligence is the key to investing in this economic climate. Greed is a killer; pair it with impatience and stupidity and you have the formula for financial ruin. There is nothing wrong with the accumulation of wealth, but it is hard to feel sorry for people who have all the money in the world, but so little knowledge on how to invest it. Even the fat, pimply kid knows something is up when the hot girl winks at him. If it’s too good to be true… Well, you know the rest. |
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