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Madoff Sentenced To 150 Years
selven was one of several readers to send in the news that Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison. "Bernard Madoff's victims gasped and cheered when he was sentenced to 150 years in prison, but they walked away knowing little more about how he carried out the biggest robbery in Wall Street history. In one of the most dramatic courtroom conclusions to a corporate fraud case, the 71-year-old swindler was unemotional as he was berated by distraught investors during the 90-minute proceeding. Many former clients had hoped he would shed more light on his crime and explain why he victimized so many for so long. But he did not. Madoff called his crime 'an error of judgment' and his 'failure,' reiterating previous statements that he alone was responsible for the $65 billion investment fraud. His victims said they did not hear much new from Madoff in his five-minute statement. They also said they did not believe anything he said. As he handed down the maximum penalty allowed, US District Judge Denny Chin... [said], 'I simply do not get the sense that Mr. Madoff has done all that he could or told all that he knows.'"
Last post!
-- Madoff
The message to would-be scammers is: don't get caught.
all the jackasses at the SEC that ignored data again and again which pointed to fraud and enabled him to get away with this for so many years?
Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
I've thought this since news of the scandal broke:
You know why Bernie Madoff seems to be very complacent about the whole thing? Because his sons got off scot-free. Madoff is quite fine with sacrificing his freedom for the rest of his life... there are few things more [noble? gratifying?] than sacrificing yourself for your children.
I still believe it very unlikely that Bernie's sons didn't knowingly participate in this... or at least were aware of it. The whole way that the story broke... Madoff confessed to his son when he caught him trying to cover it up or something... then the sons convincing him to turn himself in...
I think Bernie is at least partly taking the fall for his sons. I only wish we could find out the whole truth.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
He gets room and board on our dime. They should put a zapper-collar on him and cut him loose. Then garnish every dollar he makes. Let him stay at the Y and work for Mickey Ds. Then again we deserve this for not watching over and voting out the corrupt politicos. It's the voters' fault as much as anybody's. I don't care why he did it. We all know why. A lot of people are tempted to do the same thing if they think they won't get caught. And it's we who let them get away with an awful lot every election cycle. Maybe because many of us would like to get away with this ourselves if we thought we had a chance. He represents a pretty broad spectrum. So fuck him, and fuck all those who reelect the crooks who make all this possible.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
With time off for good behavior, he could be out in 127.5 years.
I'm not sure you're aware of how the world of high-finance works. There have been hedge funds handling over $10B with FIVE employees. Seriously.
I think it's very likely that there were others in-the-know. But they probably worked out a plea to provide documentation to nail the case against Madoff, which is why they won't be prosecuted. Or Madoff is looking for redemption after perpetrating this fraud, and decided to shoulder the rap for everyone else involved. I think the last option is the most likely, and I think that his sons were who he was protecting.
But it doesn't really matter, does it? These were the extremely wealthy who were conned. As long as someone gets hanged (or imprisoned forever) we don't care. Hell, look at the swindling by Enron execs... that directly affected the retirement savings of millions of people, and in the end, we didn't really care.
As far as the general public is concerned, it's not a big deal when the wealthy steal from the wealthy. That's business by another name. And it's not a big deal when the wealthy steal from the poor -- that's business as usual. All we really care about is when the poor steal from the wealthy, because we always look down on those poorer than us, we like to imagine ourselves as wealthy, and so when the poor steal, it's an affront to our ideals.
Anyway, I'm rambling a bit... so I'll just sum up by saying: Yes, others were likely involved. Yes, he took the fall. But no one cares, as long as there's a spectacle.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Seriously, it's impossible to get rid of $65 Billion without having something valuable to show for it. So far they've gathered the low 9 figures of $ from him, less than 1% of the money.
Do you have ESP?
There are several sites I no longer bother opening links for:
digg
facebook
televisa
foxnews
No sig for the moment.
I'm sure Madoff operated with that understanding (hey, he can't be stupid), yet still got caught in spite of that. I don't really think this sends any message anyone wasn't already aware of.
The message before today was, "and if you get caught, you get 3-10 years, then you're back out and you'll be rich."
A lot of people take these sorts of risks under the impression that, worst case, they spend a few years in jail, and they're fine with the prospect of trading a few years of their life in exchange for wealth far beyond their natural means.
Now the message is, "if you get caught, your life is ruined."
How about all the clients who did everything they could to have the privilege of being Madoff's clients? I mean heck what were they thinking while they saw their accounts having unbelievable returns? They might as well take some responsibilities.
...it will send a message to investors.
Message? Entrusting all your money to one guy is a bad idea. It's the same message they should have received when people lost all their retirement at Enron. Yes, there were people who tried to diversify towards the end and got unfairly shut out; but they should have been diversifying all along.
The Madoff lesson is that you don't just diversify your investments, you diversify your managers. In other words, one manager who says the portfolio is diversified is not enough. You should be employing more than one manager. One of them should be YOU. You may find out that they aren't any better than you. In that case, perhaps you should simply cut them out entirely; although I'm not convinced there aren't at least some managers who are worth their fees. It's just that I've never actually met one. It's become a truism over the years that a basket of stocks meeting certain criteria will beat most managers. That's why index funds have become so popular.
Of course, this falls under the category of "good problems to have" since many in the US now have a negative or very small net worth.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Excuse me, but...
I lost my job over this when my employer tanked because of Madoff's scam, and I never had a dime invested with him. This has affected all kinds of people!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Can I ask why this article is tagged "republicans"? Bernard Madoff isn't one, since he gave 88% of his political spending to the Democratic party (source). Nor is Judge Denny Chin a definite Republican (his affiliation is unknown). Alright, so some of the victims were, and probably some of the conspirators, but there's no reason this should be tagged the way it is.
Better yet, when he retired from his career as a fraud he managed to secure himself of free breakfast, lunch and dinner for the rest of his life.
Sure. The extremely wealthy. And, also, charities. What do you think of stealing $15 million from The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity? Maybe $24 mill from New York University or $3 million from Bard College bothers you? I wonder what United Association Plumbers & Steamfitters Local 267 in Syracuse thinks about your blanket characterization which indicates that their loss (still under calculation) doesn't matter.
(For reference, the victim list.)
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Madoff's going to spend his time in medium security or worse because of the length of his sentence. Madoff is not going to like prison one bit.
But if you're old, and you've lived a full life, you can rest assured that your kids and your wife will still get to live a life of luxury, while you live a life of leisure in a state-run old age home. And you'll have plenty of influence to ensure you get a comfy life inside prison, since you can pay off anyone you need.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
The message to would-be scammers is: don't get caught.
Or as a corollary, don't lose money. Nobody, including the SEC, cared until he started losing money and couldn't keep paying out those astronomical returns.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Thing is, if you try to make money off of crime and you're convicted, the government seizes everything in sight unless you can prove 100% that you had it before the crime was committed. They call it 'proceeds of crime', and put it in place to 'get' drug 'kingpins'. Even hiding the cash offshore isn't good enough, as even the Swiss have bent over backwards to open the books on those numbered accounts. Moving 65 billion dollars is a big feat, and will leave a big-assed papertrail.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
He ran NASDAQ for fuck's sake. That takes some serious economic knowledge as well as some heavy connections. That kind of background, he knew what he was doing. Ponzi schemes are not hard to spot if you know what to look for. He knew. He knew the bottom would drop out someday, and just bet that it would happen after he croaked. He lost.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
"read and relax where he is safe"
They haven't decided where he is serving his sentence yet. If its a minimum security country club prison your assessment might be correct. If it a real federal penitentiary with violent criminals it might not be so safe or easy. There are also more than a few people who might wish him harm and people can be harmed in prison for a price.
All in all I really don't feel any sympathy for his victims. To me it was a greedy crook fleecing greedy people who were borderline themselves. It is more than a little unrealistic to expect 10-12% annual returns year after year with no risk. You can make a LOT of money compounding at that rate. Getting that kind of annual return pretty much always entails high risk. There is an old saying you should be very afraid when you are making a lot of money because its usually too good to be true and wont last, and you can make a lot of money when everyone else is afraid.
His victims were in a lot of ways just as greedy as he was. His feeder funds and victims must have suspected it was fishy, but went along as long as they got theirs out of it. They mostly seem to have thought they were special and privileged and deserved to get returns ordinary people couldn't. I feel no sympathy for people like that. They gambled in the casino Wall Street has turned in to and lost. Tough luck, nothing to see here and time to move on. Stop crying. Your own fault you put all your money in to an investment that was too good to be true.
About the only good thing that could come out of it is to compel meaningful reform and regulation of Wall Steet and and all indications are that isn't going to happen. Wall Street is rapidly going back to business as usual. Wall Street cost people like 14 trillion in wealth in the last collapse and most of it was due to criminal fraud and Ponzi schemes just as bad as Madoff and very few of those fat cats are going to jail. Obama and Geitner's proposed reforms are toothless.
I saw in passing a week or so some British lord and financial type was testifying in front of an EU commission. His take was the big banks and hedge funds were threatening regulators with blackmail. If the EU and the US go too far with regulation, they would move to Switzerland or the Caribbean and take their money with them. His take was the fat cats were racing to get back to were they were in 2006, demanding ridiculously high compensation, resuming the high risk investments, undermining reforms and he fully expects another bubble and collapse in 10 or 15 years. The tax payers and ordinary Joe's will be screwed again and the rich will just keep getting richer. It seems almost inevitable because the banks conned all their governments in to bailing them out. The essential concept of moral hazard has been completely undermined. The fat cats now know they can gamble and take all the winnings and when they lose taxpayers will take all the losses. If the banks were "too big to fail" before its even worse now because due to the forced mergers of the last year America three biggest banks are now bigger than ever. JP Morgan, B of A and Citibank are now the three largest banks in the world based on tier 1 capital due to mergers.
@de_machina
You can find a list of investors at the WSJ's site. There are a lot of schools, pension plans, and non-profits on the list that were significantly harmed, it's not a simple case of the wealthy stealing from the wealthy.
On a lighter note, Madoff has an impressive Bacon Factor of 1. The actor wouldn't confirm how much he gave Madoff, but let's hope it was way less than the $10 million Zsa Zsa Gabor claims to have lost. I shudder at the thought of the horrible movies a financially desperate Kevin Bacon would churn out.
Which honestly is pointless. Should Madoff be banned from operating a company? Sure. Should he have to return his stolen goods and pay back the people he scammed? Yes. Should he be forced to liquefy most of his assets to help pay back? Yes. Should he be in prison not just scamming people once but effectively scamming the taxpayers. No. Prison should be reserved for only dangerous people who committed violent crimes and need to be put away for a while so they don't go back into crime and when they get out of prison they for the most part should be rehabilitated and able to live a normal life (with perhaps a few restrictions such as banning the sale/possession of firearms form violent criminals). Madoff is not a danger to society. And before you try to use a reasoning of "setting an example" that is not justice. No matter how much he scammed, he does not belong in jail. He should be working the rest of his life making small payments to pay for those he scammed. Prison is not the place for non-violent criminals, those should be placed on house arrest, have fines, restrictions or be placed on probation. Why should my tax dollars pay to lock away someone who wouldn't threaten anyone's lives, property, etc if he was out on the streets (with again restrictions on what he can and can't do economically).
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
But if you didn't lose money, it wouldn't be a scam.
Fifty years of the most luxurious lifestyle imaginable, every financial dream at your dospaoals, walthy than the ealthiest kings - without all the hassle.
Followed by 2-5 years in prison and a quiet death?
I'll take it. Where do I sign up?
Real punishment would be making him work to pay something - ANYTHING- back. Not to the people he fleeced, who were almost as greedy, but to soceity as whole. Now taxpayers have to pay to house and feed this guy! Make him work as a waiter, or cold call salesman or some other crap drop until he drops dead. Every penny gets invested into a trust fund for children's education or some other noble cause.
In a country without socialized healthcare, fraud *is* a violent crime.
I agree with your post completely but I don't think Madoff stashed most of that $65 billion in a Swiss bank account or anything else that might leave a paper trail. Since he was running a pyramid scheme, most of it probably when to pay off other investors.
Of course, he undoubtedly skimmed off a tidy sum for use by he and his spouse.
This ain't rocket surgery.
5 years hell. Now come all the appeals. Is he out on bail?
This is money we're talking about. That makes for a looong sentence.
Now if he'd killed someone, you'd be right.
Wikileaks, no DNS
He just needs to find a couple of inmates that are willing to do a couple more years of his jail time in order to be part of his plan. Those inmates need to find more people willing to do a couple more years of the jail time of all the people who got into the scheme before them, and those inmates need to get even more inmates willing to do more jail time. Soon Madoff will have enough sucker... I mean inmates to cover his time. Of course the last person in will need to do like 10000 years of jail time but then it will be up to the government to figure out how to keep the last inmate alive for that long.
There were at least two people who took their own lives directly because of their losses from his theft:
These men are equally as dead as any two other murder victims, and were apparently in no trouble or danger prior to Madoff's criminal activity.
And just in case you want to blame the victims, consider the phrase "danger to society" doesn't necessarily mean "physical danger". Compare what he did to a mugger pointing a gun at you, but not shooting you: you might lose $200 bucks from your wallet, you might have crapped your pants, but you're still alive, and still have a job. Causing the collapse of hundreds of businesses, the unemployment of thousands, the destruction of retirement funds of tens of thousands of people -- I'd say he ranks right up there with any weapon of mass destruction in terms of the damage done to our society. "Danger to society" isn't exclusively the province of the barrel of a gun.
Prison is exactly the right place for him to spend the next 150 years. My only complaint is that he didn't start serving it when he began his fraud, which federal investigators place about 1975. He got to live too many good years outside of the gray bars.
John
There are some sicknesses that socialized healthcare either will not cover or will not cover thoroughly enough to really cure.
Bullshit.
with socialized healthcare you get placed in "review hell" because A) the doctors get paid the same really no matter what they do
Also bullshit. In Ontario, doctors get paid per treatment/visit, more or less depending on what kind of treatment they do. No different than in the US.
and B) there are many other doctors/clinics.
I'm not even sure what the hell this has to do with anything.
If you say you need antibiotics for something, chances are in the US you can get them for whatever weak reason, with socialized healtcare if you have a non-common illness the answer will always be to wait longer.
Again, bullshit. If I need antibiotics for something, my doctor writes me a prescription for antibiotics, and I go get it filled. Of course, if I don't actually need antibiotics, my doctor doesn't have an incentive to feed me medication that I don't actually need. If you want to talk intelligently about universal or public health care, go learn something about the subject instead of repeating the lies you've been told. Here's an interesting fact for you. Of the top 40 or so countries in the world, the US has the most inefficient health care system. It's twice as inefficient as the next most inefficient health care system.
Universal public healthcare systems are operating right now, that are at least twice as efficient as the health care system in the US. Stop and think about that. This isn't theorizing about what a public health system might do, this is real actual performance in the real world. Of course, there are also many nations with fully private health care that are at least twice as efficient as your own system, which should be ringing bells in your head right about now. The problem isn't about public/private, the problem lies elsewhere. Many Americans will say that the discrepancy is caused by the "cheeseburger nation", but here in Canada we're just as obese as you are, and we do much better than you in terms of health care efficiency.
So what is the real problem? Why is it that in the US, you have absurdly high numbers of people with no coverage at all, and yet you spend more per person on health care than any other country? Follow the money....
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
punishment
Function: noun
1 : the act of punishing
2 : a penalty (as a fine or imprisonment) inflicted on an
offender through the judicial and esp. criminal process
He's not going to prison because he's currently a danger to anyone. He's going to prison because The People decided he should be punished for his misdeeds. The People have decided that probation is just not enough punishment for destroying the pensions of thousands--maybe tens or hundreds of thousands of victims. Maybe he didn't physically assault these people--but he didn't just rob them of money, he robbed many of these people of YEARS of their hard work... Remember, some people have to get along by trading their, blood, sweat and tears; ultimately trading time for currency. When you annihilate someone's retirement account, I think an argument could be made that you're literally stealing time from their lives. Isn't that what murderers do, if more suddenly or brutally?
And before you try to use a reasoning of "setting an example" that is not justice.
The way I see it, prisons have two primary services to society: Deterrence before the act, and reformation after sentencing. You're welcome to argue their effectiveness in either of these roles (rather dismal, IMO)--but that's not the point. The point is, laws are useless unless they're backed by a set of mean and nasty, pointy teeth when it's appropriate. So what if it is "setting an example"? Maybe the prior examples just weren't harsh enough to dissuade ol' Bernie? Perhaps this might deter the next douche who starts on the path of stealing 65-70 billion, and contributing in no small part to a globally upset economy?
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
And how exactly do you know what you wrote about socialized care is true?
I am a disability pensioner in a country that has socialized medicine. Not only can my Doctor prescribe any drug on the list at any time,
he can specify virtually any treatment. There is no
input form anyone other than my own doctor in my treatment.
If you must make sweeping generalizations, try for a modicum of accuracy please.
That thief has forced people much older than he is to go back to work when they thought they had their retirement covered. Can you imagine being an 80 year old frail granny and finding out you are now penniless? It wasn't just other rich fatcats he ripped off, he ripped off all sorts of normal regular working folks whose other financial "advisors" got them hooked up with his fraud. Now they have to go commute twice a day with reduced reflexes, bad eyes and arthritis, or go out on the street penniless. Let alone the physical and psychological stress.
And by not locking him up, you are saying to other white collar megathieves at high levels, go ahead, do your worst, the new plan is to give you a government job and credit card if you get caught?
WHAT freeking deranged planet do you live on? That sort of "justice" would stop those thieves from being thieves? That's not even CLOSE to being a deterrent. Incarceration is both, it is supposed to be a deterrent to others, plus a punishment for the convicted. This asshole has probably caused any number of heart attacks and strokes now just from the stress a lot of his victims got put through. And a lot of them won't get a penny back because of the way the laws work, in fact, the ones who REALLY need some of their money back are the ones most likely to not get any. Those victims need to know he AT LEAST will suffer as much as they are now going to suffer. Wait until you get older, see how it feels to know you'll never be able to relax or have a day off no matter how tired and frail you get.
Nope, he needs jail, along with a slew of other wall street financial snakeoil conmen, they can start with the entire goldman sachs organization, biggest damn leeches and parasites on the planet. The damn revolving door between their offices and official government positions is *obscene*. They are the prime movers behind this economic coup d' etat we are all going to suffer for years under. They need to BAN most paper financial "products" and "services", because they are all mostly SCAMS and even some in the industry recognize this now. The whole wallstreet congame needs to be called and regulated like what it is, a CASINO. They need to be BANNED from calling what they do as "investing", it is so far away from the classical definition it ain't funny, and this case PROVES there has been no credible oversight by all the agencies who get fat checks and pensions to supposedly "regulate" it.. Madoff, goldman-sachs, all of those bloated ticks hanging off of society, including the almost completely useless government regulators, jail is almost too good for them. The government had just a few actually honest and righteous investigators who called foul years ago on madoff and some other crooks, the result, wall street influence got them told to sit down and shut up. Do you get it yet? Madoff is just a symptom of the rot and is an easy target for them to throw away as a MISDIRECTION. This is a political stunt, but he still needs jail. Just don't stop with just him.
Madoff is a public sacrifice they are throwing to the mobs just to see if people will forget about all the other scam-foolery that has been and is still going on with this whole economic "system" designed and run for wall street fatcats. He is SMALL POTATOES and still freaking bad. Lock him up, and then start on locking up a few thousand more and we can call it a decent first day effort, then get serious about it. Throw a freekin blockade around manhattan and start running some serious checks on what has been going on there for the last several decades, they have STOLEN most of the wealth produced in the US through lies, buying off congress, economic manipulation, insider trading, insider trading through foreknowledge of what the Fed does, and etc. A damn nest of thieves, rotten and corrupt to the core.
You're an idiot making inflammatory arguments.
Prison is a punishment - removing the freedom to live your life. Whether someone is dangerous or not has no relevance...There's a reason why poor, homeless people don't commit murder in order to get "free room and board" at the local penitentiary: Being incarcerated is a real punishment and on top of that, a _deterrent_ to other people who may be tempted to commit the same crime.
Since you're a nerd arguing on Slashdot, if a criminal burned down your house, destroyed your computer and any backups you have, would you be satisfied with them replacing the monetary value of the house and computer? If so, I wish I (like many people) had a extra few hundred thousand dollars. Then I could track you down, burn down your house, destroy all your property and cut you a cheque, for the damage and continue on with my life. Hopefully it would take less than this to illustrate the sheer idiocy of allowing people to commit non-violent crime and avoid punishment simply by reimbursing the victims in cash, i.e. a different system of justice for rich and non-rich people.
I bet you're American.
There are some sicknesses that socialized healthcare either will not cover or will not cover thoroughly enough to really cure.
Name one.
In the U.K., under the NICE system, they set a price limit on every condition. If they can save a year of life for about $50,000, they will do it. If it costs more than that, NICE recommends against it, but if people complain about it, the government usually gives in and pays for it anyway. They try to avoid giving out $100,000 drugs that have minimal effectiveness, but they treat long-term conditions better than we do in the U.S.
The U.K. is the cheapest, stingiest system in Europe. Sweden probably has the best care in the world.
But even in the US you can usually get on so many programs and with the aid of various non-profits and a good story in the newspaper or TV news station get enough help to get the care you need.
I just spent several days on the phone over the last few months trying to help a friend of mine who lost his job and health insurance get on Medicaid, so I know something about what actually happens. The city welfare agency just delayed his application for months. He had one condition that required lifetime medication to save his life, so it was a serious business. I made half a dozen calls to those non-profits and got nowhere.
But don't take my word for it. Here's a story in the Wall Street Journal that demonstrates how you can die in the U.S. if you can't afford health care. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06339/743713-84.stm The WSJ had a whole series like that. (This is for people who don't believe Michael Moore.)
Granted, you will probably be in debt till you die, but even if you are poor you can usually *get* the initial treatments
As the WSJ story shows, that's not true.
but with socialized healthcare you get placed in "review hell" because A) the doctors get paid the same really no matter what they do and B) there are many other doctors/clinics.
So how come the Mayo Clinic, where doctors are on salary and get paid the same whatever they do, has some of the best outcomes in the country?
If you say you need antibiotics for something, chances are in the US you can get them for whatever weak reason,
That's supposed to be a benefit? If you take antibiotics when you don't need them, you're growing antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which could kill you later.
with socialized healtcare if you have a non-common illness the answer will always be to wait longer.
Ridiculous. I just read an article in the New England Journal of Medicine in which French doctors described how they were treating cryopyrin-associated periodic syndrome in their socialist system. Is that non-common enough for you? They were using canakinumab, which will probably cost tens of thousands of dollars per year.
And that's why he's still playing innocent. If he coughs up the rest of the money, his wife, his family, and his lawyers suddenly have to scrounge for a living like honest people.
He needs his family to keep the money out of the hands of the cops, and his lawyers to keep he family clear of the cops as well. Both of those groups need Bernie to keep his mouth closed abou the remaining money. There is no surprise that they're all keeping quiet about the rest of the money.
On the contrary, I was under the impression that by the nature of his ponzi scheme he had to keep it going because the moment he stopped everyone would realize what happened. I'm not sure how you just "walk away" from thousands of investors without giving them their money (and he couldn't, their money didn't really exist, hence the scam) and not raise any alarms.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Bullshit.
Not bullshit. There is not an unlimited supply of health care in either public or private systems. Rationing *always* happens in one form or another.
Of course, there are also many nations with fully private health care that are at least twice as efficient as your own system, which should be ringing bells in your head right about now. The problem isn't about public/private, the problem lies elsewhere.
Absolutely correct. The US healthcare manages to combine the worst of both worlds: the lack of guaranteed coverage, and the lack of competition and pricing signals. I primarily blame the ridiculous concept we have that our employers should pay for our health insurance. This makes no sense whatsoever; it eliminates direct competition and routes people into one-size-fits-all plans, and it means if you lose your job you're doubly screwed. It makes no more sense for my employer to pay for my health insurance than it does for them to pay for my house or car.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Not bullshit. There is not an unlimited supply of health care in either public or private systems. Rationing *always* happens in one form or another.
That's not what the GGP was arguing. He implied that rationing is peculiar to socialized health care. That is bullshit.
I primarily blame the ridiculous concept we have that our employers should pay for our health insurance. This makes no sense whatsoever; it eliminates direct competition and routes people into one-size-fits-all plans, and it means if you lose your job you're doubly screwed. It makes no more sense for my employer to pay for my health insurance than it does for them to pay for my house or car.
Is that really it? I think it might be more complicated. I get really suspicious of the fact that insurance companies have so much control over what they cover, and get to deny coverage for strictly financial reasons. In the private health care transaction, the one who controls access to the treatment (insurance companies) has all the power. The health care consumer is stuck. They need the treatment, they have no choice. They either pay, or go without and get sicker or die. Any transaction with that much power imbalance between two of the parties is ripe for exploitation. You're certainly on the right track though, I think.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/business/30bernietext.html
Following is a transcript of Bernard L. Madoffâ(TM)s statement to the court during his sentencing, as provided by the court:
Jine Lee/Bloomberg News " Your Honor, I cannot offer you an excuse for my behavior. How do you excuse betraying thousands of investors who entrusted me with their life savings? How do you excuse deceiving 200 employees who have spent most of their working life working for me? How do you excuse lying to your brother and two sons who spent their whole adult life helping to build a successful and respectful business? How do you excuse lying and deceiving a wife who stood by you for 50 years, and still stands by you? And how do you excuse deceiving an industry that you spent a better part of your life trying to improve?
There is no excuse for that, and I donâ(TM)t ask any forgiveness.
Although I may not have intended any harm, I did a great deal of harm. I believed when I started this problem, this crime, that it would be something I would be able to work my way out of, but that became impossible. As hard as I tried, the deeper I dug myself into a hole. I made a terrible mistake, but it wasnâ(TM)t the kind of mistake that I had made time and time again, which is a trading mistake. In my business, when you make a trading error, youâ(TM)re expected to make a trading error, itâ(TM)s accepted. My error was much more serious. I made an error of judgment. I refused to accept the fact, could not accept the fact, that for once in my life I failed. I couldnâ(TM)t admit that failure and that was a tragic mistake.
I am responsible for a great deal of suffering and pain. I understand that. I live in a tormented state now knowing of all the pain and suffering that I have created. I have left a legacy of shame, as some of my victims have pointed out, to my family and my grandchildren. Thatâ(TM)s something I will live with for the rest of my life. People have accused me of being silent and not being sympathetic. That is not true. They have accused my wife of being silent and not being sympathetic. Nothing could be further from the truth. She cries herself to sleep every night knowing of all the pain and suffering I have caused, and I am tormented by that as well. She was advised not to speak publicly until after my sentencing by our attorneys, and she complied with that. Today she will make a statement about how she feels about my crimes. I ask you to listen to that. She is sincere and all I ask you is to listen to her.
Apologizing and saying I am sorry, thatâ(TM)s not enough. Nothing I can say will correct the things I have done. I feel terrible that an industry I spent my life trying to improve is being criticized terribly now, that regulators who I helped work with over the years are being criticized by what I have done. That is a horrible guilt to live with. There is nothing I can do that will make anyone feel better for the pain and suffering I caused them, but I will live with this pain, with this torment for the rest of my life. I apologize to my victims. I will turn and face you. I am sorry. I know that doesnâ(TM)t help you. Your Honor, thank you for listening to me. â
My favorite quote doesn't fit into 120 characters. Now no one will like me.
I'm saying the government can't find or account for most of the recent money, so they're saying look, look what a lavish life style he lived to divert attention from what they don't want to admit.
It couldn't have been a Ponzi scheme because he didn't pay it out. The math isn't there to account for it. But Ponzi scheme is the easiest thing to call it so that's what they're doing. And of course Madoff himself is caling it that. That he self describes something that no one understands and explains nothing about it should be clue one for everyone. But people prefer the spectacle to hearing that no one understands where the money is.
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No. He's been in jail for months.
In the words of the New Yorker, on his bail hearing a few months back: "As soon as Sorkin finished asking that Madoff's bail be continued, Chin said curtly, "I don't need to hear from the government. It is my intention to remand Mr. Madoff." Immediate applause, quickly tamped down by the Judge. Moments later, two court officers approached Madoff, who stood silently and still, and then he moved his arms a little so that his hands were behind his back. And then there was a click."
That was Madoff's last moment of freedom for the rest of his life. Madoff is Federal inmate #61727-054 at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, New York City, NY. That's a maximum security facility. Here is Madoff's cell.
MCC isn't a long-term facility, so the Bureau of Prisons will probably move him after a while.
It certainly was.
The whole point of a Ponzi scheme is Peter gives you $1000, Paul gives you $2000. You tell peter his $1000 is now worth $2000, you tell Paul his $2000 is worth $4000. Peter takes his money and you're left with $1000.
You now hope to Christ that Paul doesn't ask for his money before you can find someone else to give you at least $3000. Seeing as Paul has just seen his savings double in some absurdly small amount of time, then provided Paul has no reason to need the money quickly then you should be OK. As long as you've got more people joining your scheme than you have leaving, you're in business.
As a Swede, I find it amusing how my country is used by people of shall we say socialist sympathies as the example of heaven on earth. Granted, not all things are bad here, but healthcare certainly is. Let me put it this way: if you are seriously ill, you go to Germany. Not only are there endless queues in Sweden for any more complicated treatment but the survival rates are among Europe's lowest. The statistics has improved somewhat in the last years since the state monopoly on running hospitals has been removed.
The idea that we have "free healthcare" is nonsense as well. First it's free as in "free lunch". You pay, just not to the people who provide the healthcare but to the state which then distributes it as it sees fit. Second, you actually do pay directly. There is a top cap that is applied to certain treatments and certain medicine - far from all.
Thankfully, these remnants of the "Swedish model" from the '70s (borrow and tax) are dying out. Things are getting better. In some respects we are far less socialist than the US. We have less regulation of financial markets. We have no estate tax or gift tax etc..