Anorak Forums » Backlash

1. chenier
   Member

   I can see that people might be a little irate at the discovery that Bernard Madoff, the former head of the US Securities Industry Association’s trading committee, has now apparently confessed to his employees, and the FBI, that his businesses, trading securities, making markets, and advising wealthy clients, were merely a Ponzi fraud, and that there may be around $50 billion missing.

   Anorakers tend to take these things in our stride, particularly when it's not our money, so if you are a victim of Madoff, or any other firm which took your money and ran, join the hardcore here and tell us all about it. We can't promise you a class-action suit, but your nominee might get to win the prestigious Anorak Shyster of the Year Award.

   Though be warned; there is tough competition!

   http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a3uKf5P1lFmg&refer=home

   Posted 11 months ago #

2. June
   Member

   If they can estimate what is missing, its small beer in these days of $xb needed to fix anything, which still might not be enough

   Posted 11 months ago #

3. chenier
   Member

   June,

   I take your point, and have spent my life dealing with the markets, but even I regard $50 billion potentially defrauded by one individual as more than small beer.

   It suggests that the degree of corruption, together with the degree of incompetency of the people who should have been policing his activities, goes far beyond the level that even I have suggested is commonplace in the markets.

   Professional investors put their money into Madoff's businesses; we are not talking about a Mrs Smith lobbing in her widows pension. Ponzi fraud is as old as the hills, with blindingly obvious symptoms, and yet people who maintained that the markets were the perfect way to run the world didn't even notice this?

   If this is truly symptomatic of how bad things have got, then forget about a potential recovery in a year or two's time. We will be bloody lucky if we get by without the Decline and Fall of Civilisation...

   Posted 11 months ago #

4. peggy
   Member

   I can't resist a pun and it's there in his name so here goes ..."He almost Madoff with 50Billion dollars" .. there, dunnit, so .. g'night.

   Posted 11 months ago #

5. peggy
   Member

   Oh, and Sam? If your version of $50billion isn't the same as mine .. do you think I care?

   Posted 11 months ago #

6. June
   Member

   Well the arrest has been made yesterday, is this to be the first of many in the current financial shambles, or just the first of 'any'?

   Posted 11 months ago #

7. chenier
   Member

   There are already large numbers of people under investigaton for financial frauds in the US, a process not assisted by the fact that the FBI is grossly understaffed and underskilled on fraud matters because investigators were switched to anti-terrorism; the US is now discovering that a country can be brought down by financial abuse a great deal more effectively than by a few terrorists.

   As I noted in an earlier post, Madoff's businesses had all the classic symptoms of Ponzi fraud, but the NYT reports today:

   "Despite these and other red flags, hedge fund companies kept promoting Mr. Madoff’s funds to other funds and individuals. More recently, banks like Nomura, the Japanese firm, began soliciting investors for Mr. Madoff internationally. 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."

   It looks as if we need to start brushing up on our Gibbon...

   http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/13/business/13fraud.html?_r=1&hp

   Posted 11 months ago #

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