I wonder how much really was lost. I bet Madoff does not know!
The failure to stop Mr. Madoff also is an embarrassment for Mary Schapiro, the Finra chief who has been nominated by President-elect Barack Obama as the next SEC chairman. Finra was involved in several investigations of Mr. Madoff’s firm, concluding in 2007 that it violated technical rules and failed to report certain transactions in a timely way.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123111743915052731.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Not exactly, no. There was a lot of accounts churning, and $50B is just a nice round number.
But every week he's getting closer to hitting it, give or take a few billion, with more disclosures from European (Austria, France, Spain, Switzerland, etc.) banks and high wealth private investment groups. And very recently news has started to trickle out of Latin America - to date, primarily related to Spain's Banco Santader and affiliates. Many prefer to keep quiet, at least for now, either from sense of shame or to maintain financial "privacy". If there is a chance for substantial recovery, I suspect we'll see more stories of woe.