tagged w/ Bernie Madoff
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By Susie Madrak
Oh, big whoop. The inside traders shouldn't be the biggest priority. I want the bastards who designed the system that stole people's homes and crashed the economy ... and bought off enough politicians to get away with it. It wasn't a crime of individuals, it was widespread and systemic mortgage banking fraud against ordinary people, and it ruined their lives and everyone else's at the bottom of the heap.
Bankers are like gremlins—you water one, and another hundred of them take its place. You have to strike at the root, not chip around the edges:
NEW YORK — The federal government took down the biggest Wall Streeter yet in its battle against insider trading: Rajat Gupta, a former director of Goldman Sachs who once headed powerful consulting firm McKinsey & Co.
Gupta's conviction on securities fraud and conspiracy charges in federal court in Manhattan on Friday may embolden government efforts to weed out white-collar corruption using wiretaps, tools traditionally used against mobsters and gangsters.
"It's a cat-and-mouse game," said Michael Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor who represents clients facing white-collar investigations. "This is just the latest example of the feds being one step ahead."
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have scored 62 convictions in the 68 insider-trading cases since 2009, following a sweeping FBI investigation into illicit information trafficking called Perfect Hedge. The FBI has even enlisted actor Michael Douglas, who played the fictional crooked financier Gordon Gekko in the 1980s movie "Wall Street," to star in a commercial aimed at deterring insider trader.
[...] Gupta, 63, faces a maximum of 65 years in prison for three counts of securities fraud and a fourth of conspiracy. His was the highest-profile conviction since that of fallen hedge fund titan Raj Rajaratnam, to whom Gupta was accused of feeding secret information.
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/former-goldman-sachs-director-convict
"It looks as though they are going down like dominoes, I hope they are all locked up sooner than later!!!"By Susie Madrak
Oh, big whoop. The inside traders shouldn't be the biggest... more
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Every August arrives with thoughts of both darkness and light; my mother Mary’s birthday on the fifteenth (also the Feast of the Assumption of divine Mother Mary) and the 1945 anniversary of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the 6th and 9th respectively. These dates are etched on my cerebral wall; the latter two changed our world forever in ways never before imagined.
A primitive race of beings had broken some say a forbidden barrier. Energized by fossil fuel and the desperation of world war scientists near Santa Fe New Mexico harnessed the power responsible for the formation of star systems.
http://infinitetolerance.com/music-2/buddhakan/Every August arrives with thoughts of both darkness and light; my mother... more
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At the twilight zone tea party of 2011 envisioning a world free of competition, greed and social injustice is considered a child’s dream. In reality the intension is a means to an enlightened end producing so many unsolvable contradictions that a utopia of the mind, by necessity, becomes one of the heart allowing.
Marsia Shuron Harris sings in the “Land of the Groove” beautifully don’t you agree, about the myriad of life changes that carry us on the long winding road between the yin and yang.
http://infinitetolerance.com/music-2/land-groove-lotg/At the twilight zone tea party of 2011 envisioning a world free of competition, greed... more
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Host Brett Erlich wrings laughs from the latest half-fortnight in "The Week in Everything." Targets include Donald Trump and "Celebrity Apprentice," Bernie Madoff, new reality show "America's Next Great Restaurant," Miley Cyrus' "texting relationship" with the bassist from Kings of Leon, and Subway passing McDonald's as the world's largest fast-food chain. Bonus: The first-ever look at infoMania's house band.
infoMania is a half-hour comedy show that airs weekly on Current TV. Picture the ultimate office water-cooler, only with funnier co-workers who willingly stay up late imbibing all forms of media so you don't have to. Caveat: Bring your own water. Hosted by Brett Erlich and co-starring Sergio Cilli, Erin Gibson, Ben Hoffman and Bryan Safi, infoMania airs on Thursdays at 11/10c on Current TV.
Go to http://current.com/infomania for more, and make sure to check out our Facebook profile for special features at http://facebook.com/infomania.
Current Media, the Peabody-and Emmy Award-winning television and online network founded in 2005 by Al Gore and Joel Hyatt, engages viewers with smart, provocative and timely programming -stories that no one else is telling in ways that no one else is telling them. Current's programming shines a light where others won't dare and boldly explores important subjects -- opening minds, sparking conversations and forming deep connections with its viewers. The channel's audience is comprised of affluent, curious, social and connected adults who crave the kind of entertaining, enlightening, witty and informative programming found on Current's TV and online properties. Current is now available via cable and satellite TV in 75 million households worldwide - 60 million households in the US - through distribution partners Comcast (Channel 107); Time Warner ; DirecTV (Channel 358 nationwide); Dish Network (Channel 196 nationwide); Verizon and AT&T. In the UK and Ireland, Current is available on BSkyB (Channel 183) and Virgin Media (Channel 155), and in Italy, Current is available on Sky Italia (Channel 130). Viewers can also find Current online at www.current.com.Host Brett Erlich wrings laughs from the latest half-fortnight in "The Week in... more
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Now the Republicans want to water down the regulations on derivatives in the Dodd-Frank financial 'reform' legislation, claiming they will lead to a loss of jobs. This is predictable: Every effort to defend big business is always couched in terms of helping the public.
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/02/2011218151257526294.htmlNow the Republicans want to water down the regulations on derivatives in the... more
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http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01822/madoff_1822378c.jpg
BUTNER, N.C. — Bernard L. Madoff said he never thought the collapse of his Ponzi scheme would cause the sort of destruction that has befallen his family.
In his first interview for publication since his arrest in December 2008, Mr. Madoff — looking noticeably thinner and rumpled in khaki prison garb — maintained that family members knew nothing about his crimes.
But during a private two-hour interview in a visitor room here on Tuesday, and in earlier e-mail exchanges, he asserted that unidentified banks and hedge funds were somehow “complicit” in his elaborate fraud, an about-face from earlier claims that he was the only person involved.
Mr. Madoff, who is serving a 150-year sentence, seemed frail and a bit agitated compared with the stoic calm he maintained before his incarceration in 2009, perhaps burdened by sadness over the suicide of his son Mark in December.
Besides that loss, his family also has faced stacks of lawsuits, the potential forfeiture of most of their assets, and relentless public suspicion and enmity that cut Mr. Madoff and his wife Ruth off from their children.
In many ways, however, Mr. Madoff seemed unchanged. He spoke with great intensity and fluency about his dealings with various banks and hedge funds, pointing to their “willful blindness” and their failure to examine discrepancies between his regulatory filings and other information available to them.
“They had to know,” Mr. Madoff said. “But the attitude was sort of, ‘If you’re doing something wrong, we don’t want to know.’ ”
While he acknowledged his guilt in the interview and said nothing could excuse his crimes, he focused his comments laserlike on the big investors and giant institutions he dealt with, not on the financial pain he caused thousands of his more modest investors. In an e-mail written on Jan. 13, he observed that many long-term clients made more in legitimate profits from him in the years before the fraud than they could have elsewhere. “I would have loved for them to not lose anything, but that was a risk they were well aware of by investing in the market,” he wrote.
Mr. Madoff said he was startled to learn about some of the e-mails and messages raising doubts about his results — now emerging in lawsuits — that bankers were passing around before his scheme collapsed.
“I’m reading more now about how suspicious they were than I ever realized at the time,” he said with a faint smile.
He did not assert that any specific bank or fund knew about or was an accomplice in his Ponzi scheme, which lasted at least 16 years and consumed about $20 billion in lost cash and almost $65 billion in paper wealth. Rather, he cited a failure to conduct normal scrutiny.
Both the interview and the e-mail correspondence were conducted as part of this reporter’s research for a coming book on the Madoff scandal, “The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust,” for publication this spring by Times Books, a division of Henry Holt & Company.
In the interview and e-mails, he also claimed he had been helping the court-appointed trustee who is seeking to recover lost billions on behalf of his swindled clients. In e-mails, Mr. Madoff said repeatedly that he provided useful information to Irving H. Picard, the trustee trying to recover assets for the fraud victims. He met with Mr. Picard’s team over four days last summer, he said. The e-mails were written in December and January, but he only recently agreed that they could be made public.
In prison, Mr. Madoff’s access to the outside world is both limited and monitored. All visitors must be approved by prison authorities, who also screen his limited collect calls and his incoming and outgoing e-mails and letters, though interviews with lawyers like Mr. Picard and his colleagues are less restricted and can be conducted in private.
Asked about his cell, he described a room about 12 feet square with a big window looking out on the grounds; he said he had a roommate, the second since he arrived at the prison.
It was clear from the e-mails and interview here that Mr. Madoff closely followed news related to his case in December, the second anniversary of his arrest. He lashed out at what he called some of the “disgraceful” coverage of the suicide of his son Mark on Dec. 11.http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01822/madoff_1822378c.jpg
BUTNER, N.C.... more
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Bankers may have surpassed lawyers and child pornographers as the country's most reviled people. They did this through tanking the world economy and extorting money and property from customers and the government...and complaining they weren't paid enough to do it. A recent informal Vanity Fair poll indicated 56% of banking greedheads felt their bonuses were too small.Bankers may have surpassed lawyers and child pornographers as the country's most... more
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Latest News Updates Mr Madoff lived high and mighty as a billionaire as long as he kept his Ponzi scheme afloat. Mr Mark Madoff, the eldest son of disgraced financier Mr Bernard Madoff, has been found hanged...Latest News Updates Mr Madoff lived high and mighty as a billionaire as long as he... more
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Latest News Updates Bernie Madoff's evil twin Ms Sonja Kohn is hit with $19.6B claim tied to scam. A wig-wearing Mr Austrian banker was outed yesterday as Ponzi schemer Mr Bernie Madoff's "criminal soul mate."Latest News Updates Bernie Madoff's evil twin Ms Sonja Kohn is hit with $19.6B... more
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Latest News Updates On the two year anniversary of the Ponzi scheme being bust open, Mr Mark Madoff is found hanged. Mr Mark Madoff, the older of Bernard L. Madoff’s two sons, was found dead in his Manhattan apartment on Saturday...Latest News Updates On the two year anniversary of the Ponzi scheme being bust open,... more
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YPNation's Jake Bolinger has posted a provocative piece today on the future of Social Security.
Here's an excerpt:
...Regardless of motive it is now plain to those of at the bottom of the pyramid that the system is broken. This is usually the point in a Ponzi scheme where things fall apart. Even Madoff was able to recognize he needed many more bodies entering the system than leaving it, and when the equation didn’t add up he paid the price. The government has one advantage over Madoff however: a monopoly on force. Picture Bernie with a gun and a looser set of morals and you have an accurate picture of Washington--able to force young workers to pay into a system that they know will never benefit them. As if that indignity wasn’t enough, we have to hear how it’s for our own good.
Read more at https://www.ypnation.com/blogs/social-security-one-big-ponzi-schemeYPNation's Jake Bolinger has posted a provocative piece today on the future of... more
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“Ponzi” is a fascinating two-minute animated short created by Strike Anywhere that tells the story of Charles Ponzi (1832-1949, an Italian swindler considered one of the greatest swindlers in American history. Ponzi’s scheme was a scam to rip off his investors, and it was the same scheme that made Bernie Madoff famous. Mr. Madoff was a charlatan of epic proportions, a greedy manipulator who choreographed a $50 billion Ponzi scheme. More recently, Kenneth Starr was accused of using his Ponzi scheme to defraud targets who are a “Who’s Who” list of actors, directors, writers and other artists.
As Ponzi neared death in the hospital, he granted one last newspaper interview and claimed, “Even if they never got anything for it, it was cheap at that price. Without malice aforethought I had given them the best show that was ever staged in their territory since the landing of the Pilgrims! It was easily worth fifteen million bucks to watch me put the thing over.”
This piece includes colorful illustrations and the animated short.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2010/06/16/ponzi-the-best-show-ever-staged-since-the-landing-of-the-pilgrims/“Ponzi” is a fascinating two-minute animated short created by Strike... more
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1. The contested election of 2000
2. 9/11
3. The invasion of Afghanistan
4. The invasion of Iraq
5. The Tsunami in Indonesia
6. Hurricane Katrina
7. The market meltdown
9. Bernie Madoff
9. The disintegration of Detroit
10. Guantanamo1. The contested election of 2000
2. 9/11
3. The invasion of Afghanistan
4. The... more
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