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As expected, Bernie Madoff, the widely hailed Grand Poobah of Ponzi, plead guilty today to all 11 counts of fraud, perjury, money laundering, and theft. That should net him around 150 years in the pokey. The question this morning was would the 70-year-old go straight to jail, or would he remain free, or under continued house arrest, pending sentencing.
US District Court Judge Deny Chin has just decided: Bail revoked. Bernie goes to jail, awaiting June 16th sentencing:
Noting that he had waived indictment, Judge Chin asked, “How do you now plead,” guilty or not guilty?
“Guilty,” Mr. Madoff responded.
His formal confession will cost him his liberty. Rather than letting him remain free on bail and return to his apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Judge Chin ordered Mr. Madoff immediately jailed as he awaits sentencing.
“He has incentive to flee, he has the means to flee, and thus he presents the risk of flight,” Judge Chin said. “Bail is revoked.”
Update: It is now being reported that, upon Judge Chin’s ruling revoking bail, the courtroom burst into raucous applause.
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Glad to know there is some justice in the world.
Bye-bye Bernie, see you in your reincarnation as Rush Limpball’s cyst.
a big big THANK YOU to markopolos.
may he be the first in a very, very long line.
Levy on House For Affairs hearing sets up false straw men.
One down, many, many to go. Including war profiteers.
Ok any idea how much real time he will serve?
lori wallach was fucking brilliant. i’m going to post a diary on this hearing later today.
to bad all those people will barly see a dime on their dollar.
He *really* should have faked his death, like Ken Lay. Oh well.
Question that occurs to me is timing. He definitely has the means and incentive to flee, but he’s been living in that mansion since the story broke, intending perhaps for the whole time to plead guilty, so why is he a flight risk now?
I missed her.
Does he have any incentive to cooperate now?
I wonder what his jailhouse tats are gonna say. Born to trade? “Mamele” in a heart??
He made people small fortunes. They gave him large ones.
Dead within six months having taken his secrets to his grave, I’ll bet — except the secrets revealed postmortem to his widow, about where his hidden assets are. Best grab her passport, and the boys’ too.
from roubini: Bernie Madoff is the Mirror of a Made-Off Ponzi Economy
recommend the whole thing.
i will make a quick transcript (am recording the hearing) and read her statement for diary.
he will get to keep his money and house like oj did
Ponzi schemes can thrive in an era where we are willing to believe that cutting taxes solves all economic problems.
A few days in the slammer, perhaps, then Bernie squeals on accomplices, Bernie is sprung…probably all arranged by ‘Dick’ Chaney who I understand is still runnin’ the country.
he will be sprung by congress and senate that had money with him. Like the majority right now.
OT / may be redundant. FBI raids Obama technology chief’s office(s).
WTF?
house foreign affairs hearing, “U.S. foreign economic policy in the global crisis”
morici: it’s all china’s fault, damn them!
sherman: china china china
bergsten replies to say the issue is not how much $ they give american workers, it’s about how their actions affect the global economy. that helps us too.
me: bergsten is making more sense and is less right wing than sherman. that would be bergsten from the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
just shoot me.
Bernie waited too long to confess. Would W have pardoned him? I think so.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, cops are arresting kids for sending nude pictures of themselves on cell phones- the charge- distributing child porn….Nice work coppers! BUSTED THAT porn ring!
and financial industry deregulation on a global scale (that would be the Ds like larry summers).
China is a big problem in international trade. When the Asian tigers were persuing export oriented growth they were not large enough to imbalance all of world trade. China is.
I haven’t thought at all about how to “fix” it (except for a few snarky sotto voce comments in meetings when I was there in 2002). However, the fixes being advanced in the hearing are analogous to using the U.S. military to solve all other international problems.
He never had intent or incentive to cooperate – he’s 70 years old. By declaring as he did, he preserved whatever he was able to hide for his family.
No one will be able to figure out what he did or how he did it, anymore than anyone can figure out derivatives.
This story is over.
Wanna know how we got here and how we’ll continue to see economic chaos unless the system changes?
Hyman Minsky – Stabilizing an Unstable Economy.
“snarky sotto voce comments” — you?
Color me unsurprised. *g*
i think it’s a false frame to say that “china is a big problem” – the current trade imbalances are a symptom of other problems and china is not the source of all of them.
I’d bet he has a terminal disease.
Now he has free medical treatment, 3 meals a day, shelter, and heat. And he gets to avoid his wife of many years naggin him, and will probably spend many hours reading in the prison library. Nice.
This is punishment?
freepatriot, paging freepatriot, clean up on aisle 21.
Goopers are finally falling into a line on the anti Obama message. “He should just stick to the economy until he fixes it”….The Gergen chant. It was in my morning gooper rag today-
The idea is to keep Obama from doing anything about energy or medical reform until “later” knowing full well that if it doesn’t happen in his first year it probably won’t happen. The “arguments” for this are non-existent…it seems that it’s OK for him to spend money on- say freeways- as a part of the stimulus bill but not health care because that would “spread him too thin”
When has america ever been subject to more preposterous arguments?
China is a big problem is not saying it is the big problem. The choice of the article “a” vs. “the” makes a difference.
LOL!
got it yesterday. was worried that it would be too technical, but it doesn’t look like it will be. but have some others to read first – going on a reading binge starting tomorrow.
Well if trade with nations who don’t adhere to labor regulations or environmental regulations and thereby export american jobs is a problem, then China is a BIG problem.
in the context of the current political climate, it strikes me as something like saying people buying houses they couldn’t afford if prices went down is a big problem.
iow, while technically true, it distracts from underlying problems that need attention and there are already plenty of people trying to prevent that attention
and not our trade rules that undermine those regulations?
has anyone here read stiglitz’s globalization and it’s discontents (and similar) or spent any length of time with anti-corp globalization activists?
i have jsut a little bit and found they have a lot, A LOT, to teach us.
I bet the GOP wants more money for nuclear power and this smear campaign is their MSM leverage.
I would agree that our financial system is a house of cards. I don’t think it is fair to keep Americans uninformed and misinformed about economic matters, to keep their wages stagnant for 30 years, to promote their indebtedness and then to say hey, you all are responsible and should have known better.
agree completely. thank you for saying that.
Ruthie and the kid s who knew…he never made ONE TRADE,NEED TO JOIN HIM FOR THE VACATION OF A LIFETIME IN THE GRAYBAR HOTEL
I do hate to see a man in his prime deprived of the finer things of life.
I suggest the wretched little felon be offered a steady diet of spatghettios (meatless variety) morning, noon and night, plus a tin bucket of unfiltered water with a leaky plastic cup for dipping.
Further, I would inquire if my current impression is correct, that the estigmatized mr mad-on/mad-off might be receiving an extra tick up the scale of wrath from some because he broke a golden rule and stole from the rich.
Would it be reasonable to assume he ought have company at the spatghettio trough from within his tribe of compattyrots?
I would urge that the Justice Dept duly strive to spray with a broader swash in dealing with all matters likewise reeking of unfettered, wanton greed.
Why, YES. I will hold… until doomsday if necessary. But I would remind those in charge that time is of the essence.
Sincerely,
Honest Sincere Citizen of Limited Means and Severely Tried Patience
EGGSACTLY
precisely so!
[[Ok any idea how much real time he will serve?]]
Even if it’s only 15 years, it could well be a death sentence at his age. And if it’s over something — 20 years? Can a lawyer help me out here? — it would have to be in maximum security. So there’s some help.
But it is infuriating that the govt apparently has no leverage to get him to provide more info for the investigation. In any corrupt organization, the corruption is never limited to one person.
Uh, that would be life sentence. Not the same thing at all.
FunnyDiva
Fred Bergsten runs an honest shop, more honest than Brookings, which is right across the street. In the first Bush administration, it was a kind of Clinton economics administration in exile. Don’t blame Peterson’s idiocy on the institute. Bergsten put it together with his bare hands, raising the money piece by piece. The analysis is mainstream excellent, oldstyle good economics, not the crap that comes out of Minnesota and Chicago and George Marshall.
He’s hiding something to save his wife and kids. It’s the only explanation. Honour among thieves, and all that.
thanks, that’s good to know. don’t agree with the politics, but morici and sherman anti-china tirades were just awful and made bergsten’s honesty (he was the only one to raise his hand at some stupid-ass question of sherman’s) and willingness to correct sherman’s premises refreshing from an establishment type. still though, though wallach blew the rest of them (save sometimes johnson) away. she was really good.