Madoff made off with 50 billion

If you haven't followed Bernard Madoff's exploits here is the short version.

Madoff ripped off $50 billion from a bunch of well healed rich people.

The journal has a piece here.....

Capitalism runs on trust, so inevitably there will be men like Bernard Madoff who attempt to steal from the trusting. His alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme is exceptional mainly for its size, the length of time he was able to run his con, and the affluent and sophisticated circles in which he operated. There is something especially shocking when a man held in high esteem turns out to be a thief.

Among the stranger arguments in the wake of Mr. Madoff's disclosure is that this proves the case for regulating hedge funds. Huh? Hedge funds were among the main victims here, along with well-heeled individual investors, nonprofit endowment funds and foreign financial companies.

As a broker-dealer, Mr. Madoff's firm was already heavily regulated, and news reports say the Securities and Exchange Commission investigated him in 1992 without finding anything wrong. The SEC said in a statement Friday that its New York staff also conducted inquiries into Mr. Madoff's firm in 2005 and 2007. Mr. Madoff's separate investment company registered with the SEC in 2006, which is all that hedge funds would have had to do under the SEC's proposed (but failed) hedge-fund rule of a few years back.

In the wake of Enron, Congress also gave the SEC more money and people, as well as new political motivation, to pursue wrongdoers. And Mr. Madoff also operated in New York, under the supposedly watchful and relentless eye of former Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.

Yet Mr. Madoff pulled off his alleged con despite all of this market supervision. We are now supposed to believe that the same SEC lawyers who couldn't detect a fraud at a firm for which they were directly responsible would somehow have done so if only they had been able to examine other hedge funds that invested in Madoff Securities. Thus does every enforcement failure become an excuse for more enforcement, especially among law-school professors and journalists who specialize in hindsight. Mr. Madoff, by the way, was a big donor to Democrats who favor tougher financial regulation. Perhaps that was also part of his strategy to avoid more scrutiny.

Some general thoughts....

How do you spend 50 billion? Where the hell is this money?

After you rip off a billion, wouldn't you think that would be enough? I mean how many more bottles of Cristol can you buy for 50 billion?

A liberal's paradox? Who do you hate more here? The white collar thief who stole 50 billion or the people who owned 50 billion to be stolen?

Far be it from me from calling out the WSJ but this isn't even close to being "exceptional mainly for its size, the length of time he was able to run his con, and the affluent and sophisticated circles in which he operated". Have you ever heard of social security? When are we going to call out the 40 TRILLION dollar Ponzi scheme perpetrated by US Senators?

Notice that Mr. Madoff's friends in politics weren't republicans, they were democrats.

Polipundit with a list of Mr. Madoff's contributions....

MADOFF, BERNARD 4/24/08 $2,300 Merkley, Jeff (D)
MADOFF, BERNARD 3/25/03 $2,000 Wyden, Ron (D)
MADOFF, BERNARD 3/25/03 $2,000 Wyden, Ron (D)
MADOFF, BERNARD 2/18/04 $1,000 Lautenberg, Frank R (D)
MADOFF, BERNARD 10/15/04 $250 Hooley, Darlene (D)
MADOFF, BERNARD 10/18/04 $250 Matheson, Jim (D)
MADOFF, BERNARD L 5/4/07 $25,000 Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte (D)
MADOFF, BERNARD L 9/12/08 $25,000 Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte (D)
MADOFF, BERNARD L 5/9/05 $25,000 Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte (D)
MADOFF, BERNARD L 9/30/06 $25,000 Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte (D)
MADOFF, BERNARD L 7/10/07 $2,300 Saul, Andrew Marshall ®
MADOFF, BERNARD L 7/20/07 $2,300 Lautenberg, Frank R (D)
MADOFF, BERNARD L 9/23/03 $2,000 Gephardt, Richard A (D)
MADOFF, BERNARD L 6/17/04 $2,000 Markey, Edward J (D)
MADOFF, BERNARD L 6/17/04 $2,000 Markey, Edward J (D)
MADOFF, BERNARD L 8/18/04 $1,000 Schumer, Charles E (D)
MADOFF, BERNARD L 8/18/04 $1,000 Schumer, Charles E (D)
MADOFF, BERNARD L 7/20/07 $300 Lautenberg, Frank R (D)
MADOFF, BERNARD L 10/15/04 $250 Frost, Martin (D)
MADOFF, BERNARD L 12/5/07 $-2,300 Saul, Andrew Marshall ®
MADOFF, BERNARD L MR 9/22/05 $5,000 Securities Industry Assn
MADOFF, BERNARD L MR 10/17/06 $5,000 Securities Industry Assn
MADOFF, BERNARD L MR 5/24/07 $5,000 Securities Industry & Financial Mkt Assn
MADOFF, BERNARD L MR 8/20/08 $5,000 Securities Industry & Financial Mkt Assn
MADOFF, BERNARD L MR 7/8/04 $5,000 Securities Industry Assn


What's so "progressive" about corruption?