The Ponzi scheme perpetrator was in a courtroom yesterday, pleading guilty but offering no explanation of his motives or what happened to the money.
Jim Cramer, who misled investors for years on MSNBC, was on the Daily Show, trying to defend himself against Jon Stewart's indictment of financial "news." Cramer, who built a career as the "wild man" truth teller, was as subdued as Madoff but no more successful in escaping guilt for where Wall Street is today.
Jon Stewart's verdict: "disingenuous at best and criminal at worst." One of today's best journalists, Jim Fallows, who considers Stewart, without hyperbole, the Edward R. Murrow of our time, says that he "without excessive showboating, did the journalistic sensibility proud."
Someone who saw Murrow in his prime has to agree.
Showing posts with label Ponzi scheme. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ponzi scheme. Show all posts
Friday, March 13, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Ponzi Bedtime Story?
In a time of falling home prices and trillion-dollar bailouts, one market seems to be up as a young candidate for a master's in family and marriage therapy reports that 10,000 bidders for her virginity have pushed the price to $3.7 million.
Skeptics in the age of Madoff may be forgiven for their doubts about such returns from what these days might be considered a modest investment.
The young woman's enterprise recalls the response of a friend of mine with a large public relations company to young job seekers fresh out of college who would tell him they were ready to sell out.
"That's fine," he would say. "Now what is it exactly that you have to sell?"
These days, the "Buyer Beware" signs are up for everyone, journalists included.
Skeptics in the age of Madoff may be forgiven for their doubts about such returns from what these days might be considered a modest investment.
The young woman's enterprise recalls the response of a friend of mine with a large public relations company to young job seekers fresh out of college who would tell him they were ready to sell out.
"That's fine," he would say. "Now what is it exactly that you have to sell?"
These days, the "Buyer Beware" signs are up for everyone, journalists included.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
The Myth of the Midas Touch
As the list of victims grows, the Bernard Madoff scandal is proving once again that the easiest prey for get-rich-quick schemes are the rich.
On the PBS News Hour the other night, my old friend Mort Zuckerman, who made billions in real estate and then went into publishing, seemed stunned at the wipeout of $30 million from his charitable fund's investments, which were made by someone he trusted who in turn trusted Madoff.
The same mistake was made by international banks, hedge funds, asset managers, at least one US senator and other money-hungry believers in magic down to the proverbial little old ladies in tennis shoes of Palm Beach, Florida, all of whom deemed it a privilege to be allowed into Madoff's Ponzi scheme, which was showing annual returns of 11 percent and more.
A lifetime of dealing with the very rich has made me suspect that many are one-trick ponies, very good at what brought them wealth, but susceptible of being flattered by flim-flam artists like Madoff, who make them feel smarter than everybody else at maximizing their money (an attitude taken to the extreme by the late Leona Helmsley, who said before going to prison for tax evasion, "Paying taxes is only for the little people.")
The rest of us are more likely to subscribe to the old adage, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't" and go our financially paranoid ways.
Now the economic waves have wiped him out and Madoff is under luxury house arrest, as prosecutors try to find out what happened to all that smart money. It's highly unlikely that other predators like him won't be washed up by outgoing tide.
On the PBS News Hour the other night, my old friend Mort Zuckerman, who made billions in real estate and then went into publishing, seemed stunned at the wipeout of $30 million from his charitable fund's investments, which were made by someone he trusted who in turn trusted Madoff.
The same mistake was made by international banks, hedge funds, asset managers, at least one US senator and other money-hungry believers in magic down to the proverbial little old ladies in tennis shoes of Palm Beach, Florida, all of whom deemed it a privilege to be allowed into Madoff's Ponzi scheme, which was showing annual returns of 11 percent and more.
A lifetime of dealing with the very rich has made me suspect that many are one-trick ponies, very good at what brought them wealth, but susceptible of being flattered by flim-flam artists like Madoff, who make them feel smarter than everybody else at maximizing their money (an attitude taken to the extreme by the late Leona Helmsley, who said before going to prison for tax evasion, "Paying taxes is only for the little people.")
The rest of us are more likely to subscribe to the old adage, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't" and go our financially paranoid ways.
Now the economic waves have wiped him out and Madoff is under luxury house arrest, as prosecutors try to find out what happened to all that smart money. It's highly unlikely that other predators like him won't be washed up by outgoing tide.
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