150 years for Madoff

[TheSportsPredictor]

Guess he'll die in prison:

http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/29/news/economy/madoff_prison_sentence/index.htm?postversion=2009062909

 

[KP]

Good

 

[silvershadow1981]

I think he's ready to follow the Ken Lay escape plan. If he sees a day in jail, I'll be shocked.

 

[Brooklyn Bridge]

I think he's ready to follow the Ken Lay escape plan. If he sees a day in jail, I'll be shocked.

Did he commit suicide? The "official" version is he had a heart attack, but I always thought that was a little weird. A quick death is too kind for this guy.

Bernie Madoff! Ken Lay! Deregulation! Yea capitalism!!!!

 

[mustangj17]

Prison is the safest place for this ass clown. Suprised he hasn't been killed yet.

 

[silvershadow1981]

I think he's ready to follow the Ken Lay escape plan. If he sees a day in jail, I'll be shocked.

Did he commit suicide? The "official" version is he had a heart attack, but I always thought that was a little weird. A quick death is too kind for this guy.

Bernie Madoff! Ken Lay! Deregulation! Yea capitalism!!!!

They'll say heart attack as cause of death for the next trillion years, but folks know better.

 

[Pancamo]

I think he's ready to follow the Ken Lay escape plan. If he sees a day in jail, I'll be shocked.

He's been in jail since March.

 

[NoOneLikesUs]

This American Life (or maybe it was NPR's Planet Money) did a pretty good piece on the victims of this fraud a few months back. One story in particular revolved around an older gentleman who told his daughter (or perhaps it was a son-in-law) to be careful investing with Madoff. He just thought the annual return rate was not believable.

Years go by. The couple did take their investments out of Madoff, but proceeded to hold a grudge against the father for years. They saw the return their friends and colleagues were getting off of it and felt like they were missing out.

Anyway, **** hits the fan last year and now they can't be more thankful for the warning. Basically being, if it's too good to be true, it probably is.

The investors are somewhat at fault here too. This had bull**** written all over it. The money they claimed to have lost? It was never really there in the first place. Most of these people will be just fine.

 

[Walter_Sobchak]

I think he's ready to follow the Ken Lay escape plan. If he sees a day in jail, I'll be shocked.

He's been in jail since March.

And Ken Lay died while awaiting sentencing. Pretty sure Bernie's going straight to the slammer.

 

[Mark2010]

The number of years is irrelevant at his age. 15 is as good as 150. Whatever the number, he'll die there.

So the large number seems more of a means to appease victims than anything else. No doubt some will still be cursing him long after he's breathed his last.

I am having a hard time finding a great deal of sympathy. Bernie Madoff lived a good life. Had far more money than most of us --- self included --- will ever see. Got to travel, have nice things, live in luxury. The good life. Now he'll live out his days in a minimum security prison camp, probably writing a book (to make even more money), playing tennis and giving stock tips to correctional officers and fellow inmates. And, then, one night, he'll die in his sleep.

Compared to the homeless crack addict who gets stabbed to death in an ally for the sake of $10, not a bad way to go.

 

[Batman]

They really want to make an example of this guy, send him to someplace like Marion, Atlanta or Leavenworth. Instead, like Mark said, he'll go to a minimum security prison and live out his days. Unless some disgruntled investor has a connection in there and finds someone to shank him [/keepingfingerscrossed]

 

[kleeda]

Saying "most of these people will be just fine" is a pretty casual attitude. I know one person, not wealthy by any stretch, who will not be. And what of the foundations, Elie Wiesel's among them? Don't let your hatred of the rich cloud your judgement. How would you, rich or poor, feel if you had lost nearly everything?

 

[trifectarich]

Saying "most of these people will be just fine" is a pretty casual attitude. I know one person, not wealthy by any stretch, who will not be. And what of the foundations, Elie Wiesel's among them? Don't let your hatred of the rich cloud your judgement. How would you, rich or poor, feel if you had lost nearly everything?

Yes, some of these people have nothing, but keep in mind what got them there: greed.

 

[Magic In The Night]

If you haven't read it, the article in Vanity Fair on him written in first person by his longtime secretary is fantastic. From reading it, it seems she believes the wife knew but the sons didn't. The secretary had no idea.

 

[NoOneLikesUs]

Saying "most of these people will be just fine" is a pretty casual attitude. I know one person, not wealthy by any stretch, who will not be. And what of the foundations, Elie Wiesel's among them? Don't let your hatred of the rich cloud your judgement. How would you, rich or poor, feel if you had lost nearly everything?

First off, the regulators should also be the ones thrown into the fire on this one. There were plenty of warnings on this investment scheme. It was a hedge fund. It was risky.

But if regulators aren't doing their job, ultimately it's the investor who is responsible. The investor trusted this person to continue to ring up 10 percent annual returns (or whatever it was) without a bit of skepticism. That's the definition of foolish.

I do feel sorry for those who counted on the investments to fund their retirement, kids' college funds or charitable foundation, but there's a lot of pain to go around at the moment. And a lot of was inflicted by trusting a system that was and still is deeply flawed.

 

[kleeda]

I'm not sure how investing in funds with a track record of 10 percent (or more) returns makes one greedy. Bernie Madoff failed them. So did the system. Hell, I've done better than 13 percent many years in a row. I gave a lot of that back the last 2 years, but everyone did. But I damn sure didn't lose everything, but if I had been invited into Bernie's world, I would have. I'm not a big Schadenfreud guy anyway, but particularly not for the vast majority of Madoff's victims.

 

[Mark2010]

They really want to make an example of this guy, send him to someplace like Marion, Atlanta or Leavenworth. Instead, like Mark said, he'll go to a minimum security prison and live out his days. Unless some disgruntled investor has a connection in there and finds someone to shank him [/keepingfingerscrossed]

The whole role of prisons in our society is a complex one. Do you take a person who committed some terrible crime and put them some place to torture them and make them feel bad for whatever they did? (As if they don't feel bad enough already.) Like a murderer goes to a harsher prison than someone who uses drugs or has a DWI?

Or do you --- as is currently done --- base unit assignment on factors like age, health, escape risk and so forth, basically saying that all crimes are equal and the role of prison is not to inflict punishment, but rather to protect the public?

 

[Batman]

They really want to make an example of this guy, send him to someplace like Marion, Atlanta or Leavenworth. Instead, like Mark said, he'll go to a minimum security prison and live out his days. Unless some disgruntled investor has a connection in there and finds someone to shank him [/keepingfingerscrossed]

The whole role of prisons in our society is a complex one. Do you take a person who committed some terrible crime and put them some place to torture them and make them feel bad for whatever they did? (As if they don't feel bad enough already.) Like a murderer goes to a harsher prison than someone who uses drugs or has a DWI?

Or do you --- as is currently done --- base unit assignment on factors like age, health, escape risk and so forth, basically saying that all crimes are equal and the role of prison is not to inflict punishment, but rather to protect the public?

Oh, I have no problem with the way it's done now, for the most part. Madoff isn't an escape or security risk once he's actually in prison. If anything, putting him in a maximum security hellhole would probably get him killed within a year. For the purposes of a smoothly-operating prison system he should be in a minimum security prison.
But once in a while, in extreme cases like this, you start to wonder if the punishment aspect of prison ought to outweigh some of the other factors. The guy didn't kill anyone, but he destroyed a lot of lives. Plenty of people are going to spend years -- years they don't have in some cases -- cleaning up the mess. In a lot of ways, what he did was worse than walking into a bank and sticking a gun in a teller's face. There should be some way to revisit that pain and suffering on a guy like Madoff.

 

[write then drink]

Yes, some of these people have nothing, but keep in mind what got them there: greed.

you can't be serious

how on earth is investing in what you have every reason to believe is a legitimate outfit - run by a former chairman of NASDAQ - being greedy?

 

[GB-Hack]

The big question is whether the Cubs will have won a World Series by the time he was due for release.