Will Bernie Madoff make it to his sentencing?

You left out the possibility that he gets off completely free. A guy with $50,000,000,000 should be able to find a way to get off or escape.

 

$50,000,000,000 can buy a lot of legal help, but it's hard to steal that much and not have someone looking for payback.

 

But if the government actually does ask, won't it collapse like a Ponzi scheme? :madgrin:

 

Of course, what everybody appears to have missed is the fact that Madoff pleaded Guilty. Thus, no long embarrassing trial where the *true* recipients of the money might be publicly named

Amazing how the Wall Street Fools have bid the Dow up again, despite all the bad news out there. It's a scam, pure and simple, and they only need gullible folks to invest their life savings to make it work

 

Wall street is full of scams and con artists, but Wall Street itself is far more than a scam, and is not a scam at heart.

An advanced industrial economy requires large companies to operate enormous production and construction facilities, and capitalism operates by investing saved wealth. In its early stages it's possible for single individuals to amass sufficient wealth to operate the biggest companies, but eventually the productive units are too big and too numerous. It becomes necessary for large numbers of individuals to pool their wealth in order to concentrate enough capital to operate a big business. Furthermore, it is in an individual's interest to diversify his investments, rather than just betting everything on one business, even if he owns and runs it himself.

This is where the stock market comes in: It is a mechanism, a clearinghouse, by which people can participate in a small way in a big business, and/or many businesses. A mutual fund allows you to invest a fairly small amount of money and diversify it over a large number of businesses. There is nothing wrong with this.

The problem comes when crooks are permitted (through lack of regulation and short-sighted tax policies) to manipulate the market. A company has a real value, based on its assets and its productive capacity and its market share. When the price of its stock reflects that real value, the individual can invest his savings productively and benefit from the productive power of the company. But when stock prices are manipulated by fads or by short-selling, when speculators are allowed to extract wealth by exploiting the inevitable short-term fluctuations in stock prices, then the stock market becomes a jungle in which the insiders can rob the ordinary investor. And they can do this more easily because determining the true value of a company is outrageously difficult.

One thing that would help would be a draconian tax on profits derived from short-term investments: If you sell a stock within a month of buying it, and the price has gone up, you should pay 97% of the profit as a speculation tax. Another would be to outlaw short-selling entirely: It should be illegal to sell a stock you don't own, just as it's illegal to sell a car you don't own. Credit-default swaps are actually insurance policies, and should be treated as such and regulated, so that a company selling them must have the assets to cover claims, and it should be illegal to buy insurance on property you do not own. (The greater part of the swaps in the present crisis were nothing more than gambling contracts on events that did not otherwise affect the parties involved.)

The stock market is a necessary part of a capitalist economy. The problem is that when the government is corrupt and allows crooks to manipulate it, it does not work as it should and the whole national economic system is harmed. Deregulation is nothing more than removing the fence around the chicken coop and inviting the foxes to come in and chow down. Any business executive who asks for deregulation, and any politician who supports that request should be immediately thrown in prison, because it's nothing but a request for permission to rob the public.

 

Just make the Son OF A BITCH walk EVERY Freeway in the U.S. picking up trash until he falls over dead. Then revive him and make hm get off his lazy nice person and get back to work.....

The same for the rest of those greedy Bastards who have stolen peoples hopes, lives, and dreams !

 

Personally, I hope he shivers in fear every cold night he spends in prison.

 

I want to make it clear up front, that I am not advocating viloence in any way shape or form.

I am supprised this guy is still alive period. Based on watching HBOs The Wire, were drug dealers are killing each other daily for no where near as much money. They just walk up to the rival and bam...dead. I am painting with a wide brush here, but I am still suprised this guy is out walking around, or was until yesterday.

 

I had a friend in prison who had stolen half a million in a real estate scam and socked the money away for his daughter's education. He was happy to spend the year and a half locked up for that. Madoff has certainly made his family filthy rich, and even though the government will get some of it back, the family will manage to hide plenty. Probably a few hundred million at least. Madoff could very well be satisfied with the sacrifice: He spends his remaining years in prison (if his expensive lawyers cannot get him out) and his kids and grand-kids and great-grand-kids will live their entire lives in luxury.

And in the kinds of prisons he'll be in, people don't get rubbed out like happens in the movies. The so-called "country club" prisons are not as nice now as they were a decade ago. They are very overcrowded and the quality of the food has deteriorated enormously. Yankton Camp used to be called "Camp Yum-Yum" by the prisoners because the food was so good. It is not called that any more. Dormitory rooms that were originally college dorm rooms (the prison used to be a college) were retro-fitted for double the number of beds when it was made into a prison, but since then it's been doubled yet again. At double the college number it was pretty nice. But at four times the college number, it's not any more.

Madoff is not going to have fun in prison. But he may well consider it worth it, for the wealth he's secured for his descendants. And nobody is going to knock him off.

 

If you base your perception of reality on television, you will stray very wide of the mark.

 

Overall we are on the same page

 

Oh c'mon now, does anybody seriously believe that Bernie Madoff pulled this off alone, or with just his immediate family?

Recall the whistleblower Harry Markopolos warned the SEC over 10 years ago, indeed warned them repeatedly. They did absolutely NOTHING. Thus, the SEC is complicit in this

So, if the SEC is complicit, that means the government is complicit. Since this ponzi scheme dates back to 1999 - at the very least - we can easily determine who was in the Executive, Legislative, etc for the time period 1999-2008

Now, since everybody on Wall Street all but worshiped the ground that Madoff walked on, that means all the Wall Street firms were also complicit in this scheme

Whether $50 billion, $65 billion, whatever, there is no way in hell a single person, even his family, can actually spend or invest that level of money. How many Boeing 747-400 and Airbus 380's can you buy?

Madoff pled to avoid a media circus that a trial almost certainly would have generated, with names named among others. As long as guliable sheep believe the problem is "fixed" they'll rush back into the stock market

 

Sure, there are examples in history of a "noble sacrifice" to ensure that descendants have access to untold riches. I'd buy that. Of course, plenty of folks had to be paid off to make this little scheme work: eg at the highest levels of Corporate America and the Government.

But at the very least, a few hundred million clams is worth it. This story will fade into the background noise in a matter of 2-3 months, as many lawyers will simply send paperwork back and forth until the retainers are sucked dry. That could take 5-10 years

I also doubt anybody will bump Bernie. If they're going to bump him, why not take care of bombastic little weasels like CNBC's "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer? How about folks at the SEC, who were fully aware of this scam, put their hands in their pockets, and whistled?

 

Oh cah-rist, what do you think? He'll end up in the general Population with axe murderers and be raped in the shower? Bulls***

The luxury Federal pens aren't as luxurious as they used to be, as Daniel pointed out, but they sure as hell aren't SuperMax either.

I will guarantee though, if in protest you refuse to file this April, you'll end up in a *real* prison. With real, scary prisoners who might develop an interest in your virgin cute round bubble butt

 

If you haven't seen it already, I recommend the unedited version of Thursday nights interview of Cramer by Jon Stewart. He really ripped him a new a$$hole. Some f-bombs in the 2nd and 3rd parts, but well worth watching.

[ame="http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=221516&title=jim-cramer-unedited-interview"]Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 1 | The Daily Show | Comedy Central[/ame]

[ame="http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=221517&title=jim-cramer-unedited-interview"]Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 2 | The Daily Show | Comedy Central[/ame]

[ame="http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=221518&title=jim-cramer-unedited-interview"]Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 3 | The Daily Show | Comedy Central[/ame]