How Madoff cost my family a job, a 401k and a worthy cause – MarketWatch — Geez. I wonder how many stories are out there.
For much of my life, the name Bernie Madoff has meant nothing to me. Now, however, it means far more than it should in my household and countless others across America. In my household, the net effect of the Madoff scheme is that my wife has lost all the money in her 401k account and her job as well.
But that’s only part of the story. She worked at a private foundation that shut its doors last Friday, its assets — all of which were “managed” by Madoff’s firm — frozen by court order.
We have sunk to a new low in this society, getting rich off of charities.
Hey you guys stop it over there in the US.
You’re scaring the hell out of the rest of us.I’m an Aussie and we’ve snickered at Asian economies for their corruption for years.Now they’re looking cleaner.
All this crap is sending a lot people here down the drain.
Most don’t deserve it.
who’s gonna be the first up against the wall do you guys think?
Cheers.
Greggyx
A fool and his money are soon parted.
Cursor_
It is my understanding that people who pulled their money out or recieved dividens the last few years may have to pay-give back that money to.
This guy is a modern day, albeit low key, Francisco d’Anconia.
Hmmm. A scheme where the money of new investors is used to pay out dividends to the older ones? I think I’m involved in something like this. There’s a line on my payroll stub that says FICA where my money’s been going for some time.
Everyone check your payroll stub and see if you are involved in this Ponzi scheme that is also doomed to fail.
Poor dumb conservatives and libertarians. You got your deregulation. No one did any oversight of the crooks you voted into office. No need to offer details to the ignorant dweeb who’s still waiting for SSA to fail after 70 years.
You got what you paid for. You got what you voted for. You may even get what you deserve. Too bad the rest of the nation gets to suffer along with the predictable result of Reaganomics and Gingrich’s contract on America.
We may all go back to being happy with what we have and not always wanting more,more,more, bigger better faster. If it sounds to good to be true you can bet it is.They liked the income when it was coming in. Some lessons we learn the hard way.
Great article. Sad story among too many.
#8 keano – So you are expecting Big Government to come and protect you from the bad guys? Your trust is very misplaced.
#7 by George – You’re right. I’ve never noticed this before. Thanks for bringing it to my attention!….
…..
I checked with my employer and he sez the only way I can get this removed from my pay-check is to quit……
…..
I’m thinking it over.
#8
One of the first mandates of the government is to protect its citizens from enemies foreign and domestic. However, we have come a long way from that to a government that aids our fleecing. Do you really believe that no government is the answer?
Viva anarchy!
Now you are beginning to understand why our parents and/or grandparents were always so thrifty and wary of debt. Not to mention angry at waste. “No dessert until you clean your plate!” is only a small example. Suddenly they don’t seem like such old fuddy-duddies. Now imagine what it would feel like if the current troubles go on, as they did then, for EIGHT or TEN YEARS!
Madoff is a thief. Thieves have been around for awhile.
We have sunk to a new low in this society, getting rich off of charities.
No “we” didn’t. Bernie Madoff did.
Poor dumb conservatives and libertarians.
I’ve heard no evidence that the victims of Bernie Madoff are conservatives and libertarians. The word charity pops up a lot. Putting all your eggs in one basket is not conservative. It may be libertarian. I’m not sure.
Can we be antisemitic now?
We should bring back public hangings. Or what the heck, the guillotine.
Tossing guys into out-of-sight prisons just isn’t working. And yeah, a dose of enforcement for current finance regulations wouldn’t hurt either.
Wouldn’t matter Baggins, it’s not the white collar criminals that would be getting hung.
First thing that needs to be done is get rid of the 2 tiered court system. You know the ones, the rich and government peoples court and then the court that all the rest of us get.
Funny part is(or maybe not), is that this 2 tiered system exists in the US and in Canada.
Can’t speak for other countries.
#3 – I have three words for you:
Indonesia, Indonesia, Indonesia
I believe what is really interesting is that all these victims seem to be Jews, duped by a Jew.
We’ve been preached to by the Jewish community for years that we shouldn’t isolate ourselves within our own ethnic and cultural communities, ie Diversity or it should be called Apartheid, and here we have all these, seemingly, Jews that invested in only with this individual Jew.
Cultural ‘ingrouping’ is lambasted when European Protestants do so, that seems to be the only group that isn’t allowed to do so.
Hispanics, Blacks, Asians and their ethnic subgroups, Jews and the different Muslim tribal subgroups all ingroups and applauded by our Elitist Demoncrat and Republicrat leaders. It’s also while this influx of ethnic groups has grown within our society that both society and country have declined in moral, economic and political strength as we march evermore, like lemmings, toward Medieval enslavement. There is no melting pot concept, only a new version of Apartheid.
Traaxx
#8, you’re absolutely right! Why should anybody investigate or pay attention to what is going on with their money when they can blissfully assume somebody else will do it for them.
Moral hazard and complacency are the consequences of regulation.
#10 – EvliPoliticians
>>So you are expecting Big Government to come
>>and protect you from the bad guys? Your trust
>>is very misplaced.
I don’t expect “Big Government” to protect little guys like me; if I and all of my socioeconomic peers lose our life savings due to crooked investors, well that’s just TFB.
In the Madoff case, however, the investors were the Rich and Powerful, so of course THEY are going to be protected:
“A federal judge has signed an order saying investors who may have been duped in one of Wall Street’s biggest frauds need the protection of the Securities Investor Protection Act.“.
Maybe a little protection on the front end, and perhaps this kind of selective bailout of the obscenely wealthy wouldn’t be required. And, not that anyone cares, but perhaps Joe Sixpacks (the real ones, not McBush’s department-store mannequin) would be protected from this kind of monkey business as well.
While I have a great deal of sympathy for anyone ripped off through this type of fraud, I will take exception to the worthiness of the “worthy cause” referred to in the initial text of this post. Copied directly from the website of the Robert I. Lappin Charitable Foundation is the following statement of purpose…
“Our mission is helping to keep our children Jewish, thus reversing the trend of assimilation and intermarriage.”
They seem less than eager to join the American melting pot, but of course that has no bearing on the incredible injustice that has befallen the organization.
#22. “Our mission is helping to keep our children Jewish, thus reversing the trend of assimilation and intermarriage.”
Thanks, I read that too. Eye opening. This is a charity? We need to keep the blood pure…..havent we heard this somewhere before.?
Yes, Tomas, I’d have to say that some of the charities that were defrauded seem a little more charitable than this one.
Buy an ETF and all you have to be concerned about, is the market going up.
People should pay more attention to where their cash is. Wake up !
This just in:
Madoff was major Democratic campaign contributor and lobbyist to the securities industry. Hmm.
I’m sure it was just a coincidence.
http://tinyurl.com/4ge3rv
But wait, there’s more…
Madoff’s niece, Shana Madoff, who worked as a compliance lawyer for his company, married Eric Swanson, a former SEC official who had been involved in the agency’s examinations of Madoff’s operations. The official story is that Swanson left the SEC shortly after the relationship began in 2006, and the couple was married in 2007. Swanson was one of the officials who failed to uncover the fraud at Madoff’s firm during an examination in 2004.
“Thick as thieves” isn’t necessarily just a figure of speech.