Bernard Madoff Receives Maximum Sentence

Meds, Don. The meds, remember?

caw

I still haven't heard any explanation of the difference, other than participation in most Ponzi schemes is voluntary. I guess armed thugs forcing participation under threat of incarceration makes it better somehow? Sorry, that logic fails me completely.

LaceWing said:

Mel, I wish I had copies of old Harvard Business Review articles to point to, in which, with apparently honest straight faces, 'deep thinkers' weighed in on the limits and complexity of capitalism's ethics. And mostly ended up saying, for lack of any better ideas, We gotta do whatever serves the bottom line.

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If this were truly the case, then the mophia, drug dealers, black market types, etc. woudl not be in the wrong.

I believe what they said was, "Do whatever serves the bottom line as long as it is legal."
That is a HUGE distinction.

LaceWing said:

Yes, the SEC and their ilk need a big, bad comeuppance. And yet I think many of them sort of trusted the system they were part of, and were in a way psychologically coerced. We all have to juggle short-term and long-term payoffs, and imperfect decisions.
~

At the moment, I'm not inclined to prosecute for "should have known better." Judge, yes; prosecute, no -- at least not without firm proof they knowingly defrauded those who trusted them. But, yeah, I'll bet my next-to-last dollar some of the SEC types knew damn well and should have known better.

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I think you are getting a little confused by the varying levels of guilt.
You can have no bad 'intent' but still be guilty of CRIMINAL NEGLEGENCE. And at the very least, many of the SEC are guilty of criminal neglegence, meaning that their 'inaction' was so negligent that they are responsible for the consequences.

For instance, if your child comes home and is bleeding profusely with a stake sticking out of their leg, and you put a band aid on it and send them to bed and they die from infection or bleeding to death. You are criminally neglegent becuase you should have known better.

that analogy to this sorta sucks, but it makes my point. Given their position and the evidence that was REPEATEDLY given to them, they are no better than that parent who just slapped a band-aid on a life threatening wound thinking it was o.k.

Any sort of judgement without consequence is meaningless.

Mel...

dgiharris said:

If this were truly the case, then the mophia, drug dealers, black market types, etc. woudl not be in the wrong.

I believe what they said was, "Do whatever serves the bottom line as long as it is legal."
That is a HUGE distinction.

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Except that it morphs into "Do whatever can be done to change the laws in our favor, for the bottom line, if we want to do something currently disallowed." As in, lobby the crap out of Congress to get restrictions lifted, regulations de-regulated, etc. Do whatever we can to support financially the campaigns of candidates compliant with our desires.

That's pretty much the history of the de-regulation of business and financial practices over the past three decades.

caw

Well said, Mel.

blacbird, his firm was reporting to the SEC all along, right? Was there some particular opening made by de-regulation for him to jump into that wasn't there before? Was it a general change in attitude by the SEC? Both?

mscelina said:

As for Mrs. Madoff--what a scumstress in her own right. Talk about tossing the hubby under the bus with the 'statement' she released this morning! Wow...

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Thieves fall out.

A 150 year sentence with no parole not only ensures Madoff will rot away in prison, it also means if he's reincarnated as something lesser (maybe a cockroach), he'll be arrested all over again and locked away.

It's symbolic all right and Madoff was made an example of and the sun is shining, the birds are singing and there's a little bit of justice today on God's green Earth.

nighttimer said:

Thieves fall out.

A 150 year sentence with no parole not only ensures Madoff will rot away in prison, it also means if he's reincarnated as something lesser (maybe a cockroach), he'll be arrested all over again and locked away.

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Isn't it sort of redundant to refer to Madoff coming back as a cockroach, when he already is one?

LaceWing said:

Well said, Mel.

blacbird, his firm was reporting to the SEC all along, right? Was there some particular opening made by de-regulation for him to jump into that wasn't there before? Was it a general change in attitude by the SEC? Both?

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My comment was made about recent big business practices in general, not about Madoff specifically. He was, doubtless, filing required reports with the SEC; it's just that they were blatant lies, and nobody at the SEC seems to have done any real validating of them, despite ample warnings stretching back nearly a decade. Overall laxity in regulations just made Madoff's job that much easier.

caw