Any comments about Mr Madoff?

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by sugarpop

If you pay in, you should get something back, even if it's a very small amount. Otherwise, it's like stealing.

How does that compare to Medicaid (the one for poor people, Medicare is for old people,) welfare, food stamps, or any other social program? I pay into all of those, but get nothing out of them.

[classicman]

They're all a great big Ponzi scheme.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by classicman

They're all a great big Ponzi scheme.

Incorrect.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by classicman

But for the sake of the argument, if they raise the age to say 80 and I die at 79 1/2 how much do I get?

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

It depends on whether you opted to enter the program early at a reduced payout.

Lets use the above example and say I stop working and die at 79. How much am I getting after contributing my whole life? No, I am not opting for a reduced payout.

[ZenGum]

You think this thread is confusing? Consider Japan. Part of the reason that the govt's popularity is in the 10% range is that, with Japan's dangerously aging population, over the last 30 or 40 years the state-run pension savings scheme has managed to LOSE (or not even keep in the first place) millions of peoples records of how much they paid in. Millions of aging salarymen, who have been putting money in all these years, are suddenly finding the system has no record of their deposits!
Any other country/culture, and they would ahve burned the government buildings by now.

[TheMercenary]

Man that sounds bad. I must admit that I fear something similar as we move to a more digitally based record keeping in most things. "I'm sorry sir, there is no record you were ever born." Some low level IT staffer forgets to put a record in, someone forgets to back up a data base, The Illuminati in concert with China steals the identity of millions of Americans and puts them in a virtual Chinese Re-education camp.

[classicman]

I heard somewhere last week that Madoffs wife took 15 million the day her son turned him in. Anyone know if they found it?

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by classicman

I heard somewhere last week that Madoffs wife took 15 million the day her son turned him in. Anyone know if they found it?

Her son turned him in? I don't know, I just remember hearing she withdrew millions the day before he was arrested. I didn't realize her son turned him in. If she did withdraw money, I believe that makes her complicit. I believe she is anyway, because Bernie also allegedly put the house in her name right before he was arrested, as did that Fuld guy from Lehman Bros (CEO), right before they went down. If that's the case, the wives should definitely be held accountable as well, if there is an investigation. I don't believe you should be able to hide your assests in your spouses name when you do things that might be considered illegal, in order to keep them.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I read she made 2 withdrawals totaling 15 million, one the day before the arrest and one a couple of days before that.

yes sugarpop, they didn't catch him, he admitted to his sons it was all bullshit and he was bust. They ratted him out. May have been a ploy to cover the boy's asses when he knew he would be found out eventually because of the Wall street meltdown. Let the old man take the heat, he was still influential enough to probably not be jailed and even if he was he's a very old man anyway.
So far it's worked... house arrest in a multi-million dollar palace.

[sugarpop]

yea, it's pretty sickening isn't it. Too bad the public outrage hasn't had more of an effect, like poor Paris Hilton having to go to jail. IMO, whenever white collar crinimals are caught, all their wealth should be confiscated to make up for their sins, and that would include any wealth transferred to relatives or off-shore banks.

[classicman]

Wow really? Take away everything when they are caught??? What about that whole "due process" and "innocent until proven guilty" thing?

[ZenGum]

It is hard to stay mad a capitalism when it throws up things like this:

It may be only a small toy but it's making appearances on live television and the front pages of newspapers around the world.

It's an action figure of US broker Bernard Madoff, who has been accused of perpetrating possibly the largest investor fraud ever committed by an individual.

Madoff was arrested in December for allegedly running a huge Ponzi scheme, which cheated millions of investors out of $US50 billion.

In an unusual twist, the Madoff toy comes with a golden hammer, so the buyer can gleefully smash the figurine into pieces.

The toy's creator, Melbourne man Graeme Warring, moved to the US three years ago and fell into the toy-making business "by default".

He said he decided to create the now famous 'Smash-Me Bernie' doll after an Australian mate who lived in San Francisco lost money in the Madoff scandal.

"He lost quite a bit of money and he was pretty grumpy about the whole thing," Mr Warring told ABC News Online.

"So I made him this little action figure of Bernie Madoff. Bernie had a devil's body and a pitchfork, and I put a hammer in the box and I said, 'Listen, when you get this thing, just smash it to pieces - it'll make you feel better, and then go bury it in the backyard and put it behind you'.

"So he did it, thought it was terrifically funny, and then he started telling some of his mates about it and before you know it, everyone's started to order these things.

"People were ringing me up, saying, 'Can I get some of these, I want two, I want three, I want four', so I started making more and believe it or not, I had absolutely no intention of really showing it as a toy at the toy fair."


Dominating the press

Mr Warring is referring to the New York Toy Fair, which is the largest in the western hemisphere and attended by all the major international toy companies.

"There's thousands of exhibitors and it's spread over several levels of this enormous convention area that makes anything that we've got in Australia look like a garden shed," Mr Warring said.

"What's bizarre about the whole thing is you've got these massive companies like Mattel and Hasbro and all these other ones that are big, publicly listed companies that go to this toy show and they've got booths the size of Afghanistan.

"And here's this idiot from Australia sitting there in the corner with this little Smash-Me Bernie thing, and it's dominating the press - it's just unbelievable."

Mr Warring says the toy has generated media interest from all over the world, from the local New York news to the BBC and news services in Israel.

"The first thing that happened was that Reuters turned up and started shooting and the next thing I know I'm whisked off in a limousine to Fox Studios," he said.

"I was on the Shephard Smith show, where we smashed a Bernie on Fox News, and then I went on the panel of The Strategy Room and then we did CNN and NBC, and this morning it was on The Today Show.

"Honestly, it's just been insane. I've never seen anything like it before.

"And all of this publicity has more to do with Americans' contempt of Madoff than it does with my good idea; people look for an outlet to vent and little Smash-Me Bernies become the outlet."


'An accidental triumph'

Mr Warring says the toy's success is an example of Australian humour striking a chord in the United States.

"We've got such a quirky sense of humour when you compare it to the typical American sense of humour," he said.

"Some stuff we do just is funny - we think it's just normal but these people think it's a bit out there - and this is a classic example of that."

Mr Warring says the toy has "generated a life of its own" and he's now producing a whole line of Smash-Me dolls, customised for whoever orders them.

But he admits the Bernie Madoff doll was an unexpected success.

"Sales have been going very strongly - but if I'd sold two of them, I would have sold one more than I thought I would have sold, because it's a pretty tasteless sort of item," he said.

"These poor buggers have lost their money [in the Madoff scandal]; you don't want to be seen to be profiting from people's bad experiences.

"I literally didn't expect to sell more than one and even then, I didn't expect to sell it, because I gave it to a mate of mine and the next thing you know, everyone's started to want them.

"The whole thing's just an accidental triumph."

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by classicman

Wow really? Take away everything when they are caught??? What about that whole "due process" and "innocent until proven guilty" thing?

No, when they are proven guilty. Sorry I misspoke there.

[classicman]

Seems like a few more of these are coming out ...

Stanford Ponzi Investigations: 22 Years Old

Barrington firm's assets frozen by feds

[classicman]

Oh and then the story with him starts to unravel.

Did Madoff Buy Any Stock?

Disgraced money manager Bernard L. Madoff might not have used any of his clients' billions of dollars to buy any securities for 13 years, according to the man tasked with finding the former Nasdaq chairman's remaining funds.
"For some substantial period, perhaps as much as 13 years, no securities were purchased in client accounts," Picard said.

So what does that mean for duped investors in Madoff's suspected $50 billion Ponzi scheme?

Picard said he has been able to recover roughly $650 million so far from Madoff's holdings, including funds in foreign and domestic accounts. Investors can also apply to collect up to $500,000 from the federal Securities Investor Protection Corp., which controls a type of reimbursement fund.

But of the $23 billion in losses reported by investors so far in mid-December, more than half came from those who invested in Madoff through feeder funds, Time magazine noted. Those types of investors aren't typically eligible for the federal securities insurance program.

(Picard said today that 2,350 claims have been processed so far and they expect the number of claims to double, The Associated Press reports. If the claims doubled and each investor got an equal share of the $650 million collected so far, it would work out to $138,300 per claimant.)