It seems that the Madoff investors, smarting from their losses, are screaming for the government to increase the size of the bailout. As it stands right now, the Securities Investor Protection Corporation will pay up to half a million dollars on a one million dollar investment in Madoff, but that may take a long time to occur, and the SIPC may well not have enough money.
Also, the SIPC has been known, in the past, to not pay out money on losses in hedge funds. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Madoff was running a hedge fun, whatever he may have called it. This is exactly the sort of fund which we were told for years was being invested in by "savvy investors who can take care of themselves." They didn’t need hand holding, and they didn’t want it.
Further, knowledge that Madoff was a crook was widespread on Wall Street, it was generally assumed he was because his stated strategy couldn’t make the returns he was making. It was mathematically impossible for him to make that money the way he said was making it. People invested with him anyway, not because they thought he wasn’t a crook, but because they thought he was: they believed he had figured out a way to get superior returns through fraud, and they wanted in on the game. They just didn’t expect that the fraud was a ponzi scheme, most seem to have thought he was probably front running (examing orders of brokerage customers and then getting his orders in in front of them.)
Madoff got big investors because the big boys thought he was a crook who knew how to keep getting away with it. So, by all means bail out the small folks for their half million apiece, and by all means put the necessary money in place to allow that. But that half million dollars should be it. Big savvy investors knew how to take care of themselves, after all, didn’t they? They took the returns for years, returns many of them suspected were fraudulent, time for them to take the losses too. It’s getting towards time to stop privatizing the profits and socializing the losses. If you lost more than a half million, ordinary Americans, most of whom don’t have anything like that type of cash on hand, shouldn’t be required to bail your butt out. Doing is just another case of reverse Robin Hood – take from the poor, give to the rich.
Related posts:
- BREAKING: Madoff Sentenced to Maximum 150 Years
- The Next Big Taxpayer Bailout? IMF Could Get Hundreds of Billions for European Banks
- FDL Book Salon Welcomes Barry Ritholtz – Bailout Nation: How Greed and Easy Money Corrupted Wall Street and Shook the World Economy
- Karl Rove: That’s Why They Call It a Limited Hang-Out
- Trickle-Down Lives at the New York Times
Spotlight
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About Firedoglake
Advanced search
zed?
I think $1.00 should suffice.
No, that would break the tradition of privatizing the gains & socializing the losses.
Among other things, the guy needs to be jailed, forget the bail, since he is trying so hard to move on his own assets. He needs to be stopped while their is still stuff of his own left to be confiscated. Don’t tell me his wife didn’t have a clue, either!!
Have you noticed the stories of victims lately? Today’s version is captioned: “Aged Madoff Investors Wonder About the Rest of Their Days”.
Read today that they were trying to revoke his bail because they found more stuff that he had been hiding. Hope the judge agrees.
Forget the MadeOff bailout – put the money into Fints “porn bailout”
Or better yet the “redX bailout”, I come cheap hell I don’t even need 7 figures.
Are we dead yet??????
Nevermind.
Oh yeah, how come nobody bit onto the bit on info that I posted 10 times that the Chairman of GMAC was a major investor with Madoff???
Doesn’t anyone wonder why they got a bunch of dough?????? Huh????? Well?
Just sayin’.
Its “funny”
MadeOff ran a pyramid scheme, and so is the overall economy (or you could call it gambling where the house takes a certain percent on every bet, and then in the long run everyone loses if they keep their money on the table – oh and there is no where else to put your money because if you “save” it they will just take it with inflation anyway.
How much of a pisser is it when we flirt and dip into negative savings – but god forbid we save any money. So it appears the economy is years away from being able to survive if Americans even save money. USA USA USA!
I wish I spemt all my money like smart people, instead I essentially gave it to a MadeOff.
We take fee’s then put your cash into risky shit when you are working 14 hour days.
Mr. Flint’s begging won’t go far. There’s so much free pr0n these days.
I wouldn’t know…
;~P
At this point…I trust Larry Flynt more than Harry Reid.
I really don’t have a lot of sympathy for people who lost their shirts because they knew he was crooked and wanted to get in on the deal. Let them eat cake.
Do not put yer money into risky sh*t. Famous last words.
Surely the Judge will not like what he has been doing. All the talk is about rich friends, but some of the people hurt include dire situations that non-profits and foundations losses assist. Here in TX an important Defender/Innocent group lost money. While he gets his meals in his NY penthouse.
I don’t think many did…other than…ummmm…alll the fat cats that are still rich that put their money in with the jerk and screwed everyone else…ummmm
Names please.
What amazed me is how fast congress had a sob story hearing on this. I was watching it Tuesday. It took them how long to have a hearing on 911?
Goldstein, the investor testifying to what he lost said his home mortage was $5900 a month and now he would not be able to pay it. He should get a cheaper home.
Are they going to bail out all of us who lost money in our retirement funds because of the mortage fraud?…or only certain groups.
oh yeah,..silly me…of course not.
Even the ACLU lost money. I was speaking of the very rich who knew he was a crook and invested anyway. A lot of them could care less about “the little people.”
That is what makes me wonder where the money really went.
I would like to see the statements of the investments of those in Congress who voted for TARP…
Did any of them personally get bailed out???
This is a really serious question.
Thanks. I was not replying to you; we just posted at the same time.
But that description of the suitable investor was in the dealers’ upside handbook. Now that we’re all upside down one must apply the whiney-assed titty baby standard to these knowledgeable fools. That’s in the upside down handbook.
Madoff had all the very richest country club members of the very richest and most exclusive clubs. What’s the most exclusive club in America? Where guys like Toobz Stevens get standing ovations and sympathy votes from Harry Reid cuz old SOB’s can’t be expected to know the rules?
So…does anyone imagine that what Dodd and crew were told by Bushco the day they were threatened into passing the $700 Billion bailout, but were forbidden to reveal to anyone (say….US taxpayers), was that Madoff had ripped them all off and they were about to be paupers so pass the bill to save yourselves or you’re toast….
Anyone???
Larry Flynt has always been more trustworthy than Harry Reid. They’re both sleazy self-serving slimeballs but Flynt doesn’t pretend otherwise.
Congressional Country Club comes to mind.
Ding. That is my thinking on the subject.
Wow. Quale inc.?
SIPC only steps in to make up for assets that aren’t recoverable in a liquidation. The first thing that investors get back is their assets, which of course may be worthless. If Madoff was actually investing his clients in anything at all, what they should get is the property they bought.
The standards for classifying an investor as sophisticated, knowledgeable, capable of protecting himself are actually quite weak. Having a lot of money or having run a successful business is, practically speaking, all it takes. And a lot of people who know how to sell lumber or sausage don’t know anything about the markets. So it is possible for rich-but-not-superrich people to get hurt in schemes like Madoff’s.
It’ll be select. (Since WaMu didn’t get a bailout, I won’t on my Roth either?)
Like him or not, Flynt is a First Amendment firebrand. We need more creeps like Flynt who will put their money where their mouth is. He calls out stinking hypocrites. I wish he would have produced more. That promise produced no fruit.
Like Flynt, I loathe Republican hypocrites like Diaper Dave Vitter, Jimmy Swaggart, Ted Haggard, Lyndsay Graham, Mitch McConnell, Larry The Spud…
Aw hell, I just hate Republicans.
Blank sheets of paper as stock certificates. Or printed with the words:
Just had a little earthquake here in San Diego.
twas a 5.0 loohoo
County engineering is touting big money for sewer project for our town…since their fav project has been designed “Shovel Ready” they used that to bury all the viable projects, The cherry picking goes on.
Thing is, when they find out in congress the scam is for doing the least affordable (Least Value Project)instead of the Best Value an investigation may be called for.
what a bunch of welfare queens.
I totally agree, LS. From the day Paulson took his stick-up note to the senate I have wondered where his $700 million is invested. It was reported that he had lost nearly $400 million in the meltdown. Goldman Sachs has 17 branches in the Caymens.
Where are the Bush dynasty’s ill-gotten hoards hidden away, and those of the Carlyle Group?
Hank Paulson should be in prison.
Excuse me, thats “B”illion, not “M”illion. And all of a sudden everybody wants to know where it went?! Are we surprised?!