Posted on 12/11/2008 7:14:49 PM PST by Sammy67
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Bernard Madoff, a long-time fixture and powerful adviser on Wall Street, was arrested and charged on Thursday with allegedly running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme, U.S. authorities said.
The former chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market who remains a member of Nasdaq OMX Group Inc's nominating committee, is best known as the founder of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, the closely-held market-making firm he founded in 1960.
But the alleged fraud involved a hedge fund he ran from a separate floor of the building where his brokerage is based.
Madoff told senior employees of his firm on Wednesday that "it's all just one big lie" and that it was "basically, a giant Ponzi scheme," with estimated investor losses of about $50 billion, according to a criminal complaint against him.
A Ponzi scheme is a pyramid-type swindle in which very high returns are promised to early investors, who are
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Here is another recent ponzi scam from Minneapolis Tom Petters, although they only stole $3.5 Billion
He owned several companies around here including Poloroid, and Sun Country airlines. The whole thing was one big fraud, nothing ever existed just a bunch of printed out receipts that investors gave him billions for.
Check it out if you have the time its quite interesting.
Dwarfed by Social Security....
50 Billion??? HA!
Interesting read. I think we’re going to see much, much more of this as the economic woes cause these ponzi/fraud schemes to collapse.
Everyone has lost their minds.
He was the chairman of the NASDAQ and was on the Board of Govenors of the NASD (now called FINRA)!! The SEC sure wasn’t doing there job here.
Maybe the SEC could get around to reinstating the uptick rule on shorting but the SEC is run by the hedge funds.
This country is getting more corrupt by the day.
Was Madoff a Leftist? I didn’t see that in the article.
Usually Leftists arent’t head of NASDAQ.
I almost got a contract with that Petters guy about a year ago and the thought of taking money from that guy gives me the shivers now. Although I would not have had any part in his scam directly, just designing an office building for him, still.
OMG, what a surprise!!! Who will be next? The Fuhrer-elect?
This is right on the heels of last week’s indictment of Mark S. Dreier, founder of the 250 lawyer Dreier LLP. This idiot had everything, but needed more. He thought he could pull off a Scooby-Doo like caper of flying to Toronto, brazenly impersonating a pension fund lawyer, and bluffing his way in their their own boardroom where he called an inprompt meeting and sold 40 million dollars worth of worthless promisary notes to a hedge fund client who was there on other business. He got caught and had his ass thrown in a regional jain for three days and is facing serious time in Canada. He bailed out and was re-arrested in New York for apparently ripping off clients there for 118 million. It’s a fascinating story of brazen balls, unchecked greed, insanity and “masters of the universe” hubris. Everyone’s packing boxes in his firm this week and fleeing like rats from a sinking ship-the entire company imploded in one week like a neutron bomb hit it.
The Japanese market just went off a cliff.....
Apparently he’s a big democrat...
http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?zip=10022&last=MADOFF&first=BERNARD
Looks like a democrat...
http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?zip=10022&last=MADOFF&first=BERNARD
Send me $50, and I'll give you an example of something that's NOT a Ponzi scheme, and then you can turn around and sell that knowledge to someone for $50, giving me $20 of that, of course, and in turn...
Could something similar be done by say “One’s” Dr. Evil Soros? I’ve read Cloward-Piven and it seems to me that turmoil through this sort of Ponzi scheme is possible... and we all know Soros likes the hedge funds...
Not fair to compare the work of one to work of 535.
Madoff was a BIG-Time lefty, and BIG Dem Donator, especially to Chuck Schumer and the DNC.
He went to all of the right lefty whacko Parties in New York, of course.
Apparently the lesson I should have learned, at least by today’s standards is: If you are going to steal, steal BIG.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She should have marched your sorry rump off to hedge fund school!
Is Mark S. Dreier a DEMOCRAT by any chance?
Was Tom Petters a DEMOCRAT by any chance???
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.