Its not envy!!!! And I'm not rationalizing anything! And I don't think any of us here feel this way because we are jealous of the money they have or had! And yes I did look at the list - many I would consider crooks!
I do believe in the American Dream! I do believe if you want something bad enough and if you work hard enough ANYONE can make great things happen. Unfortuantely the Great American Spirit has been overshadowed during the last twenty years or so by GREED! No one wants to work for anything anymore. They want their cake and not only do they want to eat it too, but they want it served upon a silver platter and they want it NOW!!! Well sometimes, in order to get your cake, you have to plant the wheat,wait for it to grow, harvest it, grind it, bake it, and serve it to yourself. But when you wait that long for cake - it often is the best tasting slice!
I will tell you something - I am not rich - nor am I poor. I live a comfortable life, in a nice house, with two lovely children and a husband who works hard so I can stay home to make sure my children get a superior education. Sure I could go back to work as a college professor and put my kids in school and double our salary - but that would be greedy, I would be putting myself and THINGS above my kids. I can truly say there are times I miss my income. My couch is falling apart where my son flopped on it - but a new one is not a priority, but I have NEVER sat here and wished I was rich. I was never jealous of the the immense piles of money others have. I have a husband who adores me, two teens who are turning into amazing young adults, a roof over my head, and have never been hungry. I would have to say, I am probaly richer than any of those people on that list!
And on a final note - they are not "VICTIMS" - they were investors who made BAD CHOICES. When you invest, you take a RISK. All stocks and investing is is basically legalized gambling, just on a bigger scale. Its gambling that the government can tax you on and take a big chunk of your pie. They CHOSE to invest!!!! They should have chose wiser!
RE: “Hildy”
I can tell you from experience that you are wasting your time...
That's quite an assumption.
“And on a final note - they are not “VICTIMS” - they were investors who made BAD CHOICES. When you invest, you take a RISK”
Your a right to a degree. However, the worrying piece in all this is that these were not investments in companies in Russia or Latvia or Nigeria where you might expect to fall victim of a Ponzi scheme. This happened in the United States of America - which holds itself as a bastian of a fairly (rather than ‘overly’) regulated market. The accounting standards, the checks and balances, the laws in place, are supposed to mean that things like this don’t happen and when they do they are detected early. This went on for years! There will be all kinds of fund managers all over the world suddenly looking at the risk profiles of seemingly safe US investments and wondering if those risk assessments are sound, or how many other of these big funds are built on a lie. Money will be pulled, the selling will add to the panic, the downwards spiral will continue, it will be longer before investors like myself feel comfortable putting money back into America. (hey, you wont miss me at the moment the pound has collapsed anyway - but you will other international investors). This guy has not just hurt the invidual and institutional investors he served, he has hurt the integrity of the US markets, and with that he has hurt the United States.
I hope he is locked up till he draws his last breath.