He probably didnt need to shake them down.
Madoffs victims admit they didnt do the research on Madoffs methods that they would do any other time they invested money. And even Madoff says people just threw money at him once it was known he had a system that worked.
Madoff victimized everyone from Bank of Scotland to Sandy Koufax.
Once one of these guys gets a reputation, a certain kind of person wants to get in quick before the market adjusts to a new kind of analysis. That kind of thing happens even without any shady representations. Scam artists take advantage of such stampeding.
Once one of these guys gets a reputation, a certain kind of person wants to get in quick before the market adjusts to a new kind of analysis.
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How true....I used to speculate that the ONLY investors that REALLY want to see a ‘plan’ and projected Earnings/losses are the bankers and professional lenders.
If one goes to a ‘secondary lender’ and presents a good plan they will ‘laugh’ at you but approach them with a hair brained scheme about turning their (say) 50 thou into 150 thou in a month and they fall over themselves to ‘help’.
As long as the borrower doesn’t get real greedy etc they can ‘make’ it.
Like you say, people threw money at BMadoff just to say they were dealing with BMadoff.
Like the story of one of PDJTs bankruptcies...the main lender was in so deep that if they foreclosed on DJT it would have virtually put the bank out of business but giving him some room, he eventually pulled out.
Guess where the term ‘too big to fail’ basically originated.... when the whole forest falls because you cut down one tree, you let the dying tree take the weak trees with him in order to save the majority of them, HOPING the tree will find a cure....