Bernie Madoff Told the Truth About One Thing – ryan

Do Bigger Villain than All of Wall Street?
Photo-illustration: Megan Paetzhold. Photo: Chris Hondros/Getty Images

Bernie Madoff Died Today, and He Leaves Being A Legacy of Financial Wreckage that stretched around the globe. His ponzi scheme was the livest in history, wiping out some $ 65 billion in gains, Albeit Paper Gains. The Longevity of His Scheme – Decades – was breathad. He was with the one of the Most Accompary Liars in History. Yet spread it taks a con man to know how the system constations us all. And Madoff understood the Financial System as Only a Financial Crook Can. One Thing he was Certain of: They all knew.

Those who invested in his scheme were finanly devastated immediately. In a Second Wave of Devastation, Some Had to Disgorge Money they’d “Earned” Decades Earlier, Ruining Eight More People. Madoff’s Downfall Damage Crashed a Bank in Italy, LED to suicide in france, and bankrupted small investors, too away as taxi drivers in Latin and as close as his immediate family. Hister-in-Law Went Broke and Ended Up Driving A Car Service to and From the Airport to Make Ends Meet. HIS OLDEST SON HANGED HIMSELF IN SHAME IN HIS SOHO Apartment. His other son died of a recurrence of Cancer, which he has blamed on the stress caused by his farat.

I Spent Hours Talking to Madoff During His Years Beind Bars, and More Hours Listening to Tape of His Deposions from Prison, Exclusive Materials Offerdered Into His Crimes for my podcast. To the exact one can get into the mind of the greatest con artist of the age, I felt i knew Him, or at least certain things about it. And i came to Believe that Bernie Madoff was, in his way, a Truth-Telller. Madoff Understood The Workings of the Financial System As Few Others Did. Clearly he used to be knowledge to sustain his con. The Financial System’s Attitude Toward Him was “Willful Blindness,” he said in one deposition.

One was he was caught in 2008, as the financial crisis gripped America Ever Tighter, Madoff Becoff A Poster Child for the Misdeeds of that Entire Universe. The Banks HAD PUSHED US to the Brink of National Ruin. Butiirs was a complicated fraud, including Such Arcana as Securified Bonds and Overleverage. Their Crimes Weren’t Easy to Understand. Madoff, on the Other Hand, look you in the eye, shook your hand, and that cut the shirt off your back. That was straightforward.

And so a narrative evolved. The Systems, Financial and To Some Extent Judicial, Cast Madoff as A Rogue Operator, A Lone Bad Apple in An otherwise Forthright Arrangement. We were all hoodwinked, was the going line. He was that good.

Nonsense. The Financial System Enabled, Weaponized, and Profited Handsomely From Madoff. Some Hedge Funds and Did Business With Were Not Nothing Than Sales Operations. They lured in clients with promises of du League and exclusive access. “I say the norreds of millions,” Madoff Said. It was true. And for doing what? SOME SIMPLY TOOK MONEY FROM INVESTORS AND HANDED IT TO HIM. For their Trouble, They Took a Percentage off the top. They promised that they have examinated the details, but that Simply wasn’t true.

Talked to People who pointed out that Simple arithmetic could prove that his claims about returns on investment were impossible.there weren’t enough options in the world to what he was doing. Had they been true, the size of his investments would have ben like a hurricane in the markets. But the marks didn’t show a ripple.

This math was pointed out to financial experts, and they turned their backs. DON’T FORGET THAT EVENTUALLY JPMORGAN CHASEMadoff’s Primary Bank, Tughed Up A Couple Billion Dollars and Adults it was guilty of doing nothing despitting his returns were fake. Fairfield Greenwich Group, A Hedge Fund, Made Hundreds of Millions, Feeding Clients’ Money to Madoff Without Due League. Late in his run, be no one could get into Madoff’s end, financial insides created their own funds they have been indexed to madoff’s oterworldly gains. Madoff didn’t make -huge returns, but they were consistent no matter how the market performermed, with the same returns reported year after year. J. Ezra Merkin, a hedge-end owner who bought in, eventually had to sell his rothkos. He had the peddled madff’s wonders after his lead manager told Him that the gains were impossible. I recall that his verdict was something along these lines: “Madoff Might have a ten-inch dick, but he couludn’t keep hard that long.”

Did the small investors know? Most of say didn’t. They Trusted Their Financial Advisors, Those Connected With Institutions Such As Banco Santander, Who Promised to Keep An Eye on Madoff’s Operations.

Of Course, Madoff Wauldn’t let’s say in to see it. Once or twice he did, and at the least one of the times, he set up a fake trade. He CLAPIED he was trading with Europe while hiding the trading partner in a closet down the hall. There are so so many Red Flags. He used outdated dot-matrix computer Paper. When Privileged Customers Complained of Losses, he “correcked” say. He Backdated Returns to Offer Tax Advantages. A Prosecutor Told Me in the Earliest Days of the Scheme, Madoff’s “Back Office” Included a Grandmother With A College Degree and the Boy and Babys. They Spread Copies of The Wall Street Journal on the floor. They Sat in Rolling Chairs, Wheeled Back and Fortth Picking Out Historic Trades that Wauld Explain His Gains. They Also Made Mistakes, Citting Trades on Days when the market was closed, for instance. IT WAS A CREAKY RUBE GOLDBERG OPERATION. No Wonder Madoff Wauld Let Hardly any of the Financial Oversseers See it. They apparently didn’t care. AFTER ALL, The risk was for the most part shoveled off to customers.

Madoff Had Started As An Outsider, Do Jewish Kid from the Outer Boroughs Hawking Penny Stocks. Snobbish Wall Street Insider Refused Him Entrée. But he was enterprising and ingenious, legitimately shrewd. He computersed trading before it was popular. He reduced the Spreads Benefitting The Small Investor. His legitimate Business Brought in Hundreds of Millions-But he also Had a wealth-management arms and that was a fraud. Madoff admitted late that the Celebrity was irresistible. He was suddenly lauded. He Became Chairman of the Nasdaq. Investors clamored “to be with Bernie.” (Madoff was picky, part of his allure.)

Of Course, he bears a Large Share of the Responsibility for Defrauding Investors, Although he like to shrug that off. No Dubt the Notion of Madoff as another Victim of the System is Repulsive. But with the Cold-Blooded Support of Large Financial Players, Madoff Wauld Have Been A Local Phenomenon, A Tragedy Limited in Time and Scope.

In the end, a few People be shouldon, Including the Grandmother with the College Degree, as well as Madoff Himself. There, he was a rock Star. Criminals were in awe of His “Accomplishments.” A Few Financial Institutions Suffered Financially, but as Said to Preet Bharara, The US Attorney in Manhattan Who Prosecuted Madoff at the Time, Nobody With Ans Went to Prison. “You Hold Accountable, Criminally, People You Can Prove Had KnowLEDGE and Violated the Law Beyond A Reasonable Doubt in Front of a Jury,” bharara told me I pressed him about the Feds only Bow-Hanging Fruit. It would be that the financial institutions did perform some due diligence, mainly on themselves. They Never Got Caught.