Posted on 06/30/2009 11:59:19 AM PDT by traumer
WHEN I got the call Dec. 11 that Bernard Madoff was a fraud, and that my husband's and my money -- $1.6 million -- was likely all gone, my brain couldn't comprehend it, nor what the next six months would entail.
For days, Dominic and I just held each other. We didn't want to be apart. I remember the weather in Phoenix being unusually cold and raw. It seemed appropriate.
Dominic and I were fortunate to have been able to travel in our motor home and see the country for the last four years. We loved retirement and even had the phrase "RETIREMENT WITHOUT LIMITS" hanging on our bathroom mirror so that we saw it every day when we woke up. The freedom of travel and the adventure it brought was the perfect life for us.
Then it all came to a screeching halt.
We started to realize the implications early on. We had just gone to contract in order to buy an RV site in Arizona. Needless to say, we lost that.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Seems like they are young enough to NOT be retired for awhile. Kind of like the rest of us whose retirement savings have diminished over the past nine months or so; other than public employees with taxpayer-funded defined benefit plans, many of us are having to rethink the whole retirement scenario. I am sorry they lost money, but they do not deserve a bailout of any kind.
It is a sad story, but I question whether the SIPC should pay any claims. I don’t think that Madoff was paying any insurance premium on the investments like other legitimate brokers. Maybe somebody knows the answer to that question.
As always..why did they have all their money in one investment?
Without reading the entire article, from the hip:
Retired at ages 56 and 48?
Me feel so sorry for them.
Obviously too stupid to have earned the largesse they were living on.
Probably Grandpa who slaved away for years so that these two could engage in their orgy of midddle-aged narccicism.
‘As always..why did they have all their money in one investment?’
That lesson should have been learned after Enron. Diversification is a principle of investing, one would think.
Dominic (48) was forced to go back to work. He leaves at 4:30 a.m. to avoid the summer heat in Arizona....
:oO
Totally retired 4 years ago at ages 52 (her) and 44 (him)? Well, assuming they made their original money honestly, it’s not fair that they can’t spend the bulk of their adult lives in retirement if that’s what they wanted to do, but frankly their situation is easy street compared to the many very elderly victims of Madoff’s fraud. These two can go back to work, and that will probably be better for them in the long run. Several decades of amusing oneself full-time can’t be good for one’s character or soul or deep-down happiness.
I hope they still have their motorhome. They may need it to live in later.
Seriously, I think these two ought to be thanking Madoff for turning their vacuous lives around.
I did read the article, and it is a sad story, and unfair to those who lost money over this. I would be hopping mad, too.
But as with all investing, there are no guarantees. If something sounds too good to be true, then it is. Most of these folks did not do the study necessary to know what they were investing in.
Blind faith in anything (except the Creator) will get you lost.
Luckily for these two, they are young enough to work. The unlucky ones are the oldest whom have lost everything and can no longer work.
>> Victim activist Ronnie Sue Ambrosino, 56, and husband Dominic, 48, yesterday at court.
Man, they look PISSED.
Can still afford that ‘spensive coffee, though!
The problem is that Madoff had people in the SEC bought off to look the other way.
The next house of cards that needs to fall is the SEC.
No, they’re 56 and 48 *now*. They’ve been retired for 4 years.
Some people actually do work hard to earn a lot of money early in their lives, and retire early to do things they really care about without having to make moeny at it. Nothing wrong with that. I have a certain amount of respect for people who earn very high incomes and actually save most of it, instead of getting caught up in a high-spending lifestyle. But thes two apparently weren’t doing anything but amusing themselves, until Bernie put a stop to it. I don’t know what kind of work Dominic is doing 10-12 hours a day, but Ronnie Sue is now spending her days actually helping people instead of just amusing herself, so I have to think that becoming a “Madoff victim” was really a positive turning point in her life.
They're retired???
Sheeesh..... the rest of us should be so lucky. The dude's not even 50 yet.
I’m 75 and I just wish I could retire. Have to force myself to keep going.
“...and it is a sad story, and unfair to those who lost money over this,”
########
They were duped and that is unfair, BUT they were making ridiculously good returns over a sustained period, AND Madoff gave them all the impression of an inside track, in other words, cheating.
They were all good with that.
I retired on the cusp of fifty (after decades of 12 hour days). My investments keep me in the comfortable middle class. Retirement doesn’t mean one stops working, just that one can if one so chooses. Me, I’m as busy as ever but doing what I want (and making a few bucks along the way).
>> &etc... They were all good with that.
Yes, I believe there might be a “teaching moment” embedded inside this poignant little heartbreaker of a story.
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