Saturday, December 13, 2008

Don't worry everyone; Bernie Madoff has an emergency plan.

From the Madoff Securities website:

Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC (“Madoff”) has created a Business Continuity Plan (“BCP”) designed to enable a rapid recovery and timely resumption of critical operations following a significant business disruption (“SBD”).


So, if you're one of the investors who lost some of that Fifty Billion Dollars (doesn't it look like more when written out?) when the Madoff hedge fund turned out to be a ponzi scheme, not to worry! There's a plan B!

How did he get away with it?

According to the NYT,
The Securities and Exchange Commission, which investigated Mr. Madoff in 1992 but cleared him of wrongdoing, appears to have been completely surprised by the charges of fraud.
The SEC also conducted two inquiries — in 2005 and 2007 — into Madoff's company, according to the AP. Ooops. Drat. Sorry.

Further, according to Bloomberg:

Maxam [Madoff's accountants] provided audited financial reports showing that the assets were held in custody at Bank of America Corp., Flatto said. Flatto said he learned this week that the reports were wrong: The assets were kept in custody at Madoff’s firm.



It's clear we have, what? essentially NO securities regulation in this country. That's quite the discrepancy. Thank you, Bush.

On a slightly different tack--Bernie Madoff admitted to the fraud and his sons turned him in. Why? Perhaps they're guilty too? And Dad saved them by sacrificing himself? Or maybe Bernie just figured his time had run out.

And look! Here's someone else, (a high-flying lawyer with his very own law firm that employed 250 lawyers, cut it out you guys!) busily swindling innocent investors! But, only of 380 million, plus another 35 million in escrow accounts. You have to understand, in an escrow account, which holds client money, misplacing a couple of hundred dollars, putting money in or taking it out at the wrong time, are all serious legal errors, which may put a lawyer's license to practice law on the line. 35 Million? Wow. Who needs that much money?

6 comments:

kerfuffler said...

Careful now, it's Bloomberg, not Bloomfield.

djinn said...

Bloomberg, Bloomfield, I'm sooooo0ooo embarassed. (See--there's a line break in the "ooo"'s. That's how you tell.) Fixed now.

kerfuffler said...

Is it just me, or is our economy being run like a ponzi scheme? I'm referring to the way that our deficit spending is being justified by the idea of a future, larger economy that can finally make the payments because there are more citizens paying in the future. Social Security, in particular, seems to be structured that way. I know it's not an exact fit, but there is a parallel there somewhere.
It's interesting that China, a country with a commitment to population reduction, has a much higher savings rate.

kerfuffler said...

I hope when these sons of bitches are prosecuted they are dealt with harshly. I know I'm anti-torture, but wouldn't it be nice to recover all those missing assets?
All too often white collar crime is considered a lesser offense, usually because no violence has been committed. Defrauding thousands of everything to become super rich strikes me as at least as bad a crime as holding up someone at gunpoint.
Their prison sentences should involve digging trenches in hot sun somewhere, and then refilling them.

james said...

The lesson to be learned here is when setting up your very own Ponzi scheme just make sure to only pay back modest returns. 50 billion dollars, 40 years (he has been running this thing since Kennedy, kinda hard to blame Bush)

kerfuffler said...

Bush does play a role, however, in that he slashed the budget for the SEC making it harder for the agency to have the resources to detect these kinds of schemes. The 2004 investigation failed to find anything out of order, but perhaps the SEC did not have the resources to dig deeper.