Bernie Madoff is a flipping genius!

Bernie Madoff ripped off 50 billion dollars or more and all the government can do is take his houses, cars, boats, etc. When it is all said and done he will still have billions stored away somewhere, and his ancestors will be loaded.

I would gladly spend my senior years in a jail cell, if I knew my children and my childrens children and on and on and on were going to be set for life. What is the big deal? In a few years he would have ended up in some nursing home waiting to die anyway.

Bernie Madoff is a flipping genius!

could you post the story of what he did please ?

i am interested

reply to post by thecrow001


He basically created a scam investment company that was a pyramid scheme. He got very rich people, large investment firms, and foundations to invest in his company. As people drew out money from their "investments" he paid them with money from other investors.

The way he made the scam attractive was to show a consistent 10-12% investment growth year after year. So it appeared to be the perfectly safe investment. It did not show so much return as to make people fearful, but it outpaced and was more reliable than other investments.

[edit on 2-7-2009 by grapesofraft]

reply to post by grapesofraft

I would gladly spend my senior years in a jail cell, if I knew my children and my childrens children and on and on and on were going to be set for life

You do realize he has to give all that money back? He's not a genius, he's an idiot who lied to rip people off. Luckily he was caught and his sad butt will rot in Jail, because he could not succeed on his own.

Madoff, who has been jailed since March, already has taken a severe financial hit: Last week, a judge issued a preliminary $171 billion forfeiture order stripping Madoff of all his personal property, including real estate, investments, and $80 million in assets his wife Ruth had claimed were hers. The order left her with $2.5 million that couldn't be tied to the fraud.

The terms require the Madoffs to sell a $7 million Manhattan apartment where Ruth Madoff still lives. An $11 million estate in Palm Beach, Fla., a $4 million home in Montauk and a $2.2 million boat will be put on the market as well.

SOURCE

Yea, he's rich.. NOT That 2 million will be gone very soon.

[edit on Jul 2nd 2009 by TheMythLives]

[edit on Jul 2nd 2009 by TheMythLives]

reply to post by TheMythLives


No they cannot find the rest of the money. Yeah he has to forfeit a few million here and a few million there, but he walked away with billions. Just because they say he has to give it back doesnt mean anything. They have to find it first.

Beyond that he lived the life of a King for 30 or 40 years and all he has to do is spend a few years in jail before he dies.

[edit on 2-7-2009 by grapesofraft]

reply to post by TheMythLives


From your own source

The trustee and prosecutors have sought to go after assets to compensate thousands of victims who have filed claims against Madoff. How much is available to pay them remains unknown, though it's expected to be only a fraction of the astronomical losses associated with the fraud.

The $171 billion forfeiture figure used by prosecutors merely mirrors the amount they estimate that, over decades, "flowed into the principal account to perpetrate the Ponzi scheme." The statements sent to investors showing their accounts were worth as much as $65 billion were fiction.

The investigation has found that in reality, Madoff never made any investments, instead using the money from new investors to pay returns to existing clients — and to finance a lavish lifestyle for his family. The actual loss so far has been put at $13.2 billion. But the judge said that was a conservative estimate and noted that even Madoff told his sons in December it was a $50 billion fraud.

Sounds like his family walked away with a pretty penny to me.

reply to post by grapesofraft

The way he made the scam attractive was to show a consistent 10-12% investment growth year after year.

yeah only problem was he was the only getting it LOL

reply to post by grapesofraft


You dont know much about financing and the treasury department do you? Madoff's family better not spend more than that 2 million, or I assure you they will find it. I am also pretty sure their bank records are also being checked daily for every transaction, everything they buy is also being tracked, they are being monitered 24/7 with their credit and money. I assure you they probably do not want that money anymore. Just because you cannot find something, does not mean you do not have to pay it back. If the departments wanted to be real, they could make his family sell everything and pay back with money that they don't even have. They did not make a pretty penny, while it may seem this way, I auure you its not even close

Whats the chances that Obama will pardon him at the end of his term as President?

Originally posted by ohioriver
Whats the chances that Obama will pardon him at the end of his term as President?

0% Why would he? Bernie started his firm before Obama was born, it would be pretty hard to connect the two.

Was Madoff a genius?

Well, he had to be smart enough to scam all those people, and you can't deny the man's financial know-how. However, he wasn't smart enough to keep from getting caught, and while he probably managed to stash a few mil here and there, he has hardly built up generational wealth. Most of what he stole will be taken right back from him.

I take it y'all don't understand how a ponzi works.

Bernie didn't pocket all that money, he took plenty, no doubt, but his "investors, folks who gave him money to invest, took profits out over the years.

Let's say you gave him $100,000 and he reported 20% earnings for the first year. You take $10k to buy yourself some toys, you still have 110k. you earn 20% in year 2 - $22,000. Now you have $132,000.

given Bernie liked to impose minimum amounts for some folks, and some folks didn't take money out all the time, he built up cash to dole out to clients as they needed it. The ponzi works for a while because, so long as you keep bringing in money, you should be able to supply those that want to take some out. It's when the money coming in dries up and the money is still being requested from investors that you run into trouble. Bernie doled out billions last year, to hedge funds, investors, feeder funds etc.

did he squirrel away tons of cheese? probably. did he steal 50 billion? no. not a chance. most con men buy things with their money, paying in full for homes and whatnot, in case the well runs dry, no payments to make.

they'll be digging thru the investor records and questioning, under hot lights, some of the "preferred" investors, trying to see who was funnelling money to Bernie.


edited to add- he wasn't a genius. he was a sociopath who knew that the easiest way to win over big money was to play on their greed. 20% when the markets were down 10-20% for the year and nobody asks questions. that is turning a blind eye.


[edit on 2-7-2009 by Crakeur]

Our whole economy is a Ponzi scheme. Take social security for example, that is a BLATANT Ponzi scheme. The whole federal reserve is a Ponzi scheme. A fiat money based economy is based upon the idea of a Ponzi scheme. The whole system is corrupt, from the top down. What Madoff did is no different than what Bernanke is doing, except Madoff failed to warn that if you looked in HIS books the party would be over.

Originally posted by grapesofraft
Bernie Madoff ripped off 50 billion dollars or more and all the government can do is take his houses, cars, boats, etc. When it is all said and done he will still have billions stored away somewhere, and his ancestors will be loaded.

I would gladly spend my senior years in a jail cell, if I knew my children and my childrens children and on and on and on were going to be set for life. What is the big deal? In a few years he would have ended up in some nursing home waiting to die anyway.

Bernie Madoff is a flipping genius!

He never did get a 401k from NASDAC so we pay for the
rest of his life.

I think you are correct sir.
How many times a week will they give him the Hussein treatment.
We found out a lot with him.
The FBI will hear every whisper to his sons during visitation when
he gives out the Swiss account.

This ain't like finding WMDs that were never there.
And we knew full well that the war was a wild goose chase.

reply to post by grapesofraft


descendants...not ancestors...

reply to post by postmeme


LMAO, great point. You are correct. Descendants not ancestors.

Bernie a genius, hardly! If he were a genius as you postulate, grapes, he would have gotten away with his Ponzi scheme. I'm amazed that he was able to maintain his heist for as long as he did under the Security Exchange Commission's nose. In that sense, he was pretty brilliant. However, like some one else said on the the thread; the man is a sociopath.

I'm not to concerned with the likes of Stephen Spielberg and Kevin Bacon, his most notable investors, but the ones that slaved away their entire life to have a life's work go up in smoke. These people deserve our sympathy but Bernie deserves no such treatment or encouragement for his financial fraud. Whatever money that man has in his coffers should be given to the people that got raked over the coals and hung out to dry. If there were investors complicit in his heinous scheme-- then they should get a cell alongside Bernie and their assets liquidated.

Moreover, I think Bernie's wife is just as guilty as he, and she deserves to be at least taken to the cleaners. She knew damn well what her husband was up to and she choose to make herself complicit by not reporting it. She chose to live in a palatial estate in Hamptons while others where being taken for everything. While we are at it, why don't we get tent city ready for her; because that should be her next place of residence. I despise money grubbing-scumbag-crooks and lets give an honorable mention to the boys at Enron and any other beastly abominations that want to profit off of others' suffering.



[edit on 3-7-2009 by Jakes51]

[edit on 3-7-2009 by Jakes51]

I think there is a lot of peoples able to do stuff like this, to assure good life for their descendants, but they have some etics, they still believe in the obsolete ideals... For me Madoff and his friends who throw him "to the wolves" are humans only from the formal point of view. The nazi Germans also were mostly very inteligent, charming persons and they did love their families a lot.