60 Minutes Archive: The man who figured out Madoff's Ponzi scheme 

Him being correct also did.

Let’s not forget that real professionals never believed in Madoffs insane profits. The traders all thought it was fake. Nobody traded with him. And yet not a single one of them called the SEC.

SEC members had money in that scheme so they didn't want him exposed. They had a stake in it not being a fraud

Motive is not always bad haha

@@youngbloodnba agreed, but it’s rare for someone to admit their motive rather than blindly talking praise for being the “genius” behind finding it and reporting it.

The same in politics. Accountability does not exist.

@@dennisdickson8058 it may be invented soon.

They've got Bernie's much bigger uglier cousin Donald in their sights.

@@dennisdickson8058 Depends on where you live, small countries with no aristocracy and rampant elitism doesnt have those issues. The same people and problems haunting wall street, are also haunting US politics. The US population in general, screams in pleasure when someone suggest removing all sorts of regulation and control from the markeds. The reason so many people lost their money in europe, was exactly because the SEC constantly cleared Madoffs name, and legitimated his ponzi at every turn.

SEC was all in on this f$&&?# scam!! Bernie could not pull off this scam for 20 years without some inside help! I’m sorry! Why did most, if not all major Wall Street firms bot invest in the Bernie Maddox Hedge Funds??? Dam shame?

from*

I applaud Mr. Markopolps however it is hard to imagine there were not others that knew and said nothing.

Yyyyy

@@heidithaw1072 Watch The Big Short.

@@heidithaw1072 he said himself that 100’s of people knew that something was amiss. The problem was that Madoff was so embedded in the SEC. The SEC should hang its head in shame

Untrue

Not really. I doubt you could execute this long a crime committed unless you could add that part to the scheme.

wasnt his son in law working for the SEC?

Nowadays a lack of self-regulation isno longer confined to the financial industry...it abounds everywhere.

Oh thank you for that! I was actually looking for a subtitle. Can you subtitle the whole video please? 🙄

Looks like people under your comment don't understand your comment.😂😂😂 Whew, our education system is a failure‼️

@@JoyOfJessy I hear ya loud and clear. Education and Mental health!!

The IMF and Federal Reserve bank are two ponzi schemes bigger and worse than Bernie Madoff. Madoff was unfortunately, just doing what all his buddies in power were doing.

I couldn't keep count..

Those are all courses the typical math major takes. Nothing special.

@@davidkugel any stem major i think would take most or all those math classes

I don't think he feels he was exceptional.

@@Dan6erous Exactly. He was making a point that this should have been obvious to a lot of people.

He's like a computer.

Hes a mathematician He saw it right away. 4 min.

Stock market returns without volatility are hard to achieve, if not impossible. Nobody understood it, but some were blind enough to believe Madoff. And to be fair, he was a smart guy. The fund was like a private club. People had to beg him to take the money and if someone asked questions, Madoff said he can't tell anything without loosing his edge.

Ed Thorp found out the same thing the same way, even earlier. There are some really smart people out there!

@@freddiewadling2090 not necesarrily smart, if they were in the investment business they knew what to look for. And obviously here all the fundamental were missing.

In 5 minutes.

Yes they are. If Bernie convinces his gullible investors that 2 plus 2 equals 5. The problem is you know that there were people who probably knew what Bernie was up to who either were being paid off, or worse, they were negligent in his shady activities, and weren't interested in getting to the truth.

no, he figured it out in 5 mins but took him 4 hours prove it with maths.

I say the big name's where greedy wanted to keep making fake billions

@@dawngregory6549 Because they know everything they stand in is fake.

Systemic failure of capitalism!

@@dentonfender6492 That got you fed, that gave you shelter and gave you freedom to comment. Ask Venezuela about "systematic Failure"?

6:31

Maybe sometimes you get the wrong one.

"constant haymakers of facts and logic" yikes dragon shirt

@@evanfinch4987 the Mr Spock of finance.

Was the 950 a Pete Rose reference? He cheated at baseball scores in the 70s.

I commend him but I don't think he was a genius just because of this. Though he might be a genius. According to him , everyone in the know on wallstreet knew he was a scam artist.

@@Herc11355 he is a genius.

He did receive awards.

Not a genius. Just had the balls and motivation to go after Madoff. Madoff's fraud, like many of the biggest frauds, was extremely simple. You don't need a genius to figure out something simple. Madoff was figured out years back. Everybody was willing to turn a blind eye to it and he was too big and important to be wrong in many peoples eyes. That's why it lasted for as long it did.

he does not want an award. plus what is he going to do with an award? eat it. He hoped for a financial reward

Exactly. Lol.

but his good tho

Maybe a quantum computer...but not a human being.

Bernie Madoff was good. He knew people's greed. He knew people would ask no questions if they were getting 30% return. If the financial crisis didn't happen back when it did, he would've died before anyone figured it out.

@@Mr.Deleterious Human being made the quantum computer 🙂

That's beyond scary.

That to me too was horrific...insider blindness.

#GovSanctionedMoneyLaundering I believe there were several people who went to the SEC and FBI. I assume it was #GovSanctionedMoneyLaundering and want to know if #GovSanctionedChildAbuse was involved? Are there links to #FriendsOfEpstein?

Stock market is just like Madoff Scheme

Not just chairman, he was one of the inventors of it!!

You really get a kick out of people's failures,, your easily amused,and for the record Mr letterman should not be judging others based on his mistakes....

@@theeaskey people invested their last dime....retirement savings......old couples held hands and jumped from buildings together. he made so many families helpless and broke. his own son took his own life, out of shame. So please, see it from the other perspective.

@@MANWITDABAG you talking about letterrman or Madoff.

What about the Paul and Nancy Pelosi stock purchases and stock selling on insider knowledge. They have incredible results , performance line,

@@theeaskey Get a kick out of people's failures? You really aren't trying to categorize Madoff's blatant Ponzi scheme as a "failure" for Bernie and just mean ole me is picking on him, are you bro? If so, sure, I'm the "bad guy" picking on Bernie when he is down. Good luck in life after you grow up.

💎 *G-D is in the maTh.!!* 😇

Wow i really want to learn more math now

I love that. It applies to so much in this world.

1x1=

Like your comment but don't agree on the whistle blower's moral compass....my institution tells me something else.

@@tranquility7778 : agreed.He checked into Madoff’s business because it was hurting his.

@@tranquility7778 intuition or institution?

@@deepsleep7822 Here's my question: The nerdy math guy contacted the SEC 5x over several years and no one responded to him. Why didn't he contact Bernie's clients and alert them? If Madoff was hurting his business so much why not hit him where it hurts and that's by having clients leave his firm, but @ least some of them would get to leave with their money.

@@CC-si3cr : in a perfect world, Harry M. wouldn’t know who those clients are. If Harry disclosed them that would implicate Harry in having access to a private client list. Sure Harry could have placed an ad in the WSJ (or some other financial journal) but you shouldn’t make accusations without solid proof. The proof showed reasonable doubt, but Harry had no document that tied it all together.

Also a french monarch who commited suicide aftef recommending friends

Dude, he was about to sell 2 houses

hear restaurant's are hiring in ny. didn't they pass a law 15 $ a hour or is that up in berni's state

Oh yeah poor him

@@knaziringram4589 ok bud

It's a pretty stupid saying, or your grandfather was broke & clueless.

Facts! You have to know where your money is and what it's doing. Trust but verify.

ENRON Take the money and run!!!

@@johnsmith1474 Sounds like you're not smart enough to handle your own money. Don't be mad at other people. Go to school.

My saying is a little different: "If you don't care about your money, then don't expect anyone else to."

Just be autistic

Like seth rich

NEVER whistle blow. It WILL destroy your life.

Another REASON to believe that government agencies are incompetent.

Obama promised to protect whistleblowers then prosecuted them more then any other president. Funny how that always increases after democrats take office.

@@hyacinthlynch843 Yep. Our founding fathers were correct. Limited, uncorrupted Gov't is best. Wish we had that now.

Travesty that not a single SEC member was prosecuted!

@@joshcougar5551 That is horrendous .. What makes them untouchable ... They should be sued.

You would think the government would actually hire this guy.

Do you really think the SEC wants to change anything? It's functioning as intended.

@@averagegiuseppe5640 think you you've hit on something here!

yeah i dont believe that

@@evanfinch4987 I believe it's possible with trained specialist, especially if he was looking for fraud. There are some doctors who can diagnose a patient just by looking at them

4 min - it was very simple for a mathematician to see

@@evanfinch4987 honestly if you work in finance and your familiar with the industry and how the market works it wont take you long to figure out something isnt right. Also with his background with math.

He looked at the numbers and noticed that they never had down months. That doesn’t happen even during bull markets.

It's also very unwise for individuals that expect to live off relatively modest portfolios to invest in a hedge fund. There is a temptation for managers to take big risks and even legitimate funds can implode, like Long-Term Capital Management did in the late 90's. People near retirement should get out of the stock market, which is not insured by the FDIC or anyone else.

like 2 airplanes THREE skyscrapers??

I've worked in big corporations and consulting. There's ALWAYS someone crying in the dark when the ship is off course. That person is usually punished or marginalized.

@@SoulfulVeg agree! being a whistleblower comes with much danger and takes a lot of courage

True. The math nerd actually pointed to the fraud and the useless lawyers at SEC still could not find it!

The guy deserves some kind of award for creating a small oasis of what would make America great if more people were rewarded for being dutiful citizens. A PROFILE IN COURAGE.

A great example for all kids learning maths, you can learn to read documents or be like harry an calculate the fraud. 5 mins to workout the likelihood of fraud, 4 hrs to prove it, awesome.

@Mike Studmuffin yes- you're so right - definitely !

@Mike Studmuffin The 2 chairmen of SEC were there during the Bush II years. One of them, Christopher Cox, is from Orange County, CA, and was a US Representative for many years. He didn't take Madoff's case seriously till 2008. It's true that many of the Federal regulatory bodies were financially gutted and replaced with friends of the industries they supposed to regulate. It's like putting El Chapo in charge of DEA.

To paraphrase...they did not understand how to calculate financially. Unbelievable!

How about...he's not an idiot? You don't need to be a mathematician to see fraud. In fraud cases NOTHING makes sense.

Corruption for sure

If you think that our government officials are above bribery, you don’t know the government very well

and Madoff didn't make ONE TRADE, not one! It's shocking.

@Lauren S I don't understand how people didn't question the constant high yield from their investments. Annual 12% is unnatural. A certain level of greed is involved here. There's truth in the advice against putting all one's eggs in one basket.

Greed

It was obvious that it was a scam. No safe investment pays 12 percent interest. A lot of people knew. Nobody cared. Warren Buffet rarely makes 12 percent interest on his investments. He doesn't claim they're risk free. Binance is offering 15 percent interest right now. It's a scam. Everyone knows. It's still in business. FTX offered high interest rates too before the scam collapsed. Knowing is easy. Getting the public to listen or the government to act is hard.

A lot of them have one thing in common, they were all incredibly talented and would be successful if they were legit.

Well, it's easy to get away with insider trading when people like the last Speaker of the House was involved in it. Imagine if 43 Minutes could do stories like that, but they might not get invited to parties.

It’s easy when an entire political party thinks nothing should be regulated. That Wall Street can self regulate and the gov should not police anything. When they are in power they cut the SECs funding and install industry insiders to do as little as possible and block any enforcement. Haven’t we learned by now and yet we still keep electing these clowns.

@@sabinachrzan8339 they've convinced everyone that regulation is the "boogie man" and that bs. You have to have some form of regulation or else you have the catastrophic weather events like what happened in Texas for example. I was gonna say the FTC and SEC but we see how well that works out... NOT! SMH...

👍 👍 👍

They should have CPA licence to work with SEC.

The SEC is a joke. If a person is smart enough and talented enough in finance, they are going to opt to make millions in the private sector, not 200k a year as an SEC investigator. The SEC is full of people who couldn't hack it on Wall Street

Tell you a little story about terrifying. When I ran for public office, I prepared my own government required financial disclosure reports. We aren't talking much. Just a couple thousand. The opposition had me audited and I got flagged. For what? Putting a donation in the wrong place on the form. Now, I have a business and accounting degree with honors from what was at the time one of the best business universities in the country. I argued and PROVED to the election enforcement commission that where I put that particular donation was legal and appropriate from an accounting standpoint and in line with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. It was a donation of materials for campaign flyers and not money. They said to me "but its not legal which is why we always tell people to have lawyers and not accountants fill out the financial reports." I ended up getting fined.

XRP case right now will be talked about the same way in the future.

Your story broke my heart 💔

Your story touched me as well. I just lost my mother and know how important it was to her to leave something to her kids. Fortunately she dodged the Madoff's of the world. How old was your mom?

It’s what happens when the greedy get more greedy

@@pornneliushubbard1967 hopefully your not referring to her mom as greedy

Sorry to hear that

Only he isnt in the Bahamas after being arrested and extradited so what is this comment lol

Still !!!!

The entire government is corrupt lots of insider trading and cronyism. Look at the Nancy polosy and the Clinton’s etc…

Bernie's conversation with that group took "richness" to the ionosphere.

Estimate : 3,000 + involved in CREATING FAKE CO. NAMES , FAKE FINANCIAL REPORTS ....(MY CONSERVATIVE ESTIMATE )

After witnessing what has happened in the Trump White House for 4 years, I believe in very few people these days. Everyone is looking for the next grift.

This video is EXTREMELY anti-semitic, Madoff was extremely loyal and one of the top donors to Israel. Anyone criticizes him is 100% antisemite!

@@cinemaparadiso5402 It wasn't his money! He effectively stole it.

@@chiganuggoo9929and he took the money and helped Israel .. everybody was happy until the rats got involved and the gov had no choice but charge someone. Madoff was heroic for carrying the whole case on his back, protecting the whole organization.

@@cinemaparadiso5402 If you believe that, if you HONESTLY believe that....then I nor anyone else can help you my friend.

@@chiganuggoo9929 antisemite.

Sir you are so right.

That’s a damn good point

@@radar0412 m F

@@radar0412 f U Self

@@radar0412 do something

Maýbe it wasn't as simple greed, perhaps ignorance

@@kathryngilbert5952 Or both.

@David Shields Change that to greed and stupidity and I'll agree 100%. A fool and his money are soon parted. Guess they didn't believe that.

Like that doctor who got scammed by a guy who sold him black paper strips and said it was disguised money he needed to use paint stripper on. The scammer later reformed his ways though and helped blow the lid on other scams for that channel.

15% a year does not seem too good to be true to me

He is not without faults. He also claimed GE was fraudulent which turned out to be false and lots of investors lost money when the stock tanked.

He doesn't seem like a likeable person or altruistic, it was business and ego. We do need people like him though.

I could not pass basic math (bloody dyscalulia).

Bernie was a beast. This shmuck just was lucky. He caused people to lose allot of money thinking GE was also fraudulent.

Think it all goes back to the same old principle “If it seems to good to be true, it probably is.”

Goes on to name classes I didn’t even know existed!

@@tymorgan3549 honestly most of those are classes any STEM major would take, I took all of them and only took the math that was required

@@Brandon-youtube yes... and what % of population are STEM majors ... and what % of STEM majors have the curiousity, integrity and ballzac of this guy? when you've calculated the answer you'll know whats wrong with our system.

Honestly, some people can spot a fraudster or a bad deal a mile away. It’s something in the sales pitch, the way they talk and move. It’s like the guy trying to sell me and my hubby solar panels for our house when the solar advantage only barely covered our existing energy costs. Just when he thought he had us hooked, he would sit back just like Bernie in his chair, so relaxed, like he was your best friend and doing you a huge favor. My hubby couldn’t see the scam. Everything about his behavior put me on high alert. I after about a 30 minutes into his presentation, I kept saying, I don’t get it! I don’t get it! Where’s the advantage to me? Finally I said to him, I need to figure this thing out, I’ll get back to you in a day or so…..basically. We needed to finance 30k in solar panels over 15/20 years, so their business can make money? Not to mention they want to put wholes in your roof and be the only company that can touch them or we void any warranties and the useful life is only 15 years…..LMAO! It took me till the next day to get my hubby to understand. He really wanted to go solar so we’d be helping the environment and never be out of power and dude was feeding off that because we reached out to them. Oh and guess what, you can’t even store power unless you spend another 10k-15k on a battery storage system.

@@ellag8068 Solar is a straight number crunching calculus. It doesn't matter what the guy's mannerisms were. Either his numbers worked out or they didn't. If the numbers work out, it doesn't matter what his mannerisms are/were.

Yeah, just the fact that he seemed too good to be true should have been the to the red flag at least investigate! No one's that good and this fits right into if it seems too good to be true it probably is category

They'd never hire him because the first thing he would have done is fire the bulk of them for being lawyers who lacked any financial competency.

Good Joke

👍👍👍

They would NEVER DO THAT. The SEC ls corrupt and expects the organizations it “oversees” to be just as corrupt, but to be good at hiding it.

That's exactly why they didnt hire him....

Yup!

A pickpocket gets more time for stealing a wallet with $30 in it than mortgage brokers, embezzling CEOs, or brokers who have these schemes.

@@JaneDoe12573 yup

SEC is pretty much the BBB of Wall Street.

Which is why Hillary Clinton and her “foundation” remains free.

plus his hedge fund was unregistered....wtf?!?!?!

Word of mouth??? It's similar to being good in a particular sport or industry. A website can also open the door to getting hacked, so it's also about risks. Staying offline can be a good thing, especially once you learn how much the government tracks people or what people call "government over-reach". Some people don't trust banks and keep their money at home. That also brings risk(s).

Epstein also had no trading relationships on TheStreet.

He had 2 sets of books too

I keep my money in a boat placed inside a larger boat that’s inside a larger boat. It’s extremely hard to access without destroying two boats and I don’t want to draw attention to myself breaking apart a huge boat and the next boat and the next.

I can hear it in both headphones

They did not pretend they where part of it. At least some of the upper level people on SEC. In fact there is no way MADOFF would have gotten that far without the helping hand of the SEC

Kinda like the mob with police and politicians protecting them.

Pretend?

They're back at it again with AMC and Gamestop. SEC announces investigation into Hedge Funds, 1 day later, TD Ameritrades storage warehouse mysteriously burns down with no investigation, trucks hauled off all the debri, no news coverage, look it up.

His niece married an SEC regulator. They also ask Madoff for advice. Basically, the cops are asking the crooks how to run their agency. Lol

Excellent comparison

Repent to Jesus Christ “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.” ‭‭Habakkuk‬ ‭3:17-18‬ ‭NIV‬‬ J

Perfect analogy

@@jesusislord6545 jesus is not the lord. He is merely a prophet for he fell down and prayed. When asked he said do not pray unto me but pray unto my father. He doesnt have knowledge of the hour. Stop lying bro

Always the Italians

Who are you speaking of?

Stealing!!

big facts. and we just let it happen.

Those are the truest words spoken.

@@BlackSeranna take your pick from our time, your father's time or your grandfather's time.....

Yes, but I believe his boss wanted to get those same returns :-) The props go to Harry.

2 seconds after hearing 12% consistent returns. There the clue.

And he told the SEC how. So why couldn't ( or wouldn't) they uncover the fraud?

He didn't get a reward because the SEC did not listen to his warnings and did not follow up. Madoff himself revealed the Ponzi scheme when he ran out of money.

I'd like to see Benedict Cumberbatch play him with a clipped US accent. This would be a movie I'd watch.

Had read the book “The End of Normal” by Stephanie Madoff Mack when it came out in 2011. I truly felt sorry for her and her children due to Mark taking his own life. Felt sorry for both Madoff sons. Ruth Madoff, who missed the line handing out empathy chips, lives comfortably with just under $2M, while her daughter-in-law is a single mom, broken-hearted over the loss of her husband and dad to her children. She is living off money from the sale of her book. According to her, neither she nor Mark knew Bernie’s entire enterprise was a Ponzi scheme. www.inquirer.com/philly/business/estates-of-madoffs-dead-sons-reach-23-million-u-s-settlement-20170626.html

Harry Markopolos wrote a book about it . Very good & informative read !

Never will happen, unfortunately 😕

Ummm Trump let banks free again

Run the companies or the country? You are already switching the blame?

You cant handle the truth.

We got rid of the Orange Idiot, that's a good start.

As Markopolos said himself, he did not consider himself a hero, and it is a reasonable statement. Markopolos was 'just' competent, principled, and diligent. That was enough for him to spot inconsistencies, probe them, and then report his findings to authorities. He did work that the SEC should have done. At a minimum, once he had done the SEC's work for them, the SEC should have run with it. This grew into an all-time scam BECAUSE the SEC chose to be useless.

@ Gregory Parrott - ....at least He did his job and I’m glad he didn’t get killed ..

@@gregparrott Agreed. Still ... If that gentlemen chose to do NOTHING, there could of even more damage.. All those people! 😣😣😣.. Hard lesson..

Yes, indeed.

define hero kiddo

You miss the mark about this guy by an infinite amount. He's just as greedy as Madoff, he didn't care about the people, he cared about his own pocket book and he says so here in this video. He ran his own scheme when the lame stream media paraded him around their shows with his mega phone saying GE was going bankrupt. today GE is doing ok. He did so to line his own pockets as he was shorting the stock!! Any lay investor will tell you how shady this cat is, FAR from any form of a hero!!!

@@southrichmondtofl Why is GE doing okay? Government bailouts and infinite currency creation. If we had a free market economy, GE today would be a distant memory.

@@southrichmondtofl well he was right, GE wouldve been insolvent or bankrupt if its not for government bailout.. do your dammn research before calling out someone phoney

He's a super hero because he was relentless in his pursuit.

He tried and tried, when he saw the 40 degree angle going straight up from the statements he was checking out, and that wasn't good enough for them

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Thank God for him why? He was never listened to. Bernie eventually confessed on his own in 2008 because the Great Recession unraveled his entire operation.

I still think people at the SEC intentionally turned a blind eye Either because they were getting kick backs or they knew the outcome would be devastating and they didn't want to deal with it. Idk. Wall St is too connected and as this video states, Bernie was close to the SEC.

@@cl7700 as was pointed out, the people at the SEC who reviewed the complaints were lawyers and bureaucrats and not finance people. They didn't understand what they were seeing and thus didn't even do an investigation. There is no way they were in on it - they would have found evidence of kickbacks or profits.

@@amandaskywalker7331 I get that but I'm talking about the chairmen. This is a total assumption but perhaps they instructed the lawyers to not look into this thoroughly or ignore what they find. Of course that would have been a massive conspiracy plot but I still don't buy that Bernie did all this alone.

If not for the recession, he would have kept on running this ponzi scheme. The biggest issue was that people wanted out of their investments with him and he had no money left to pay out.

Greed know no boundaries

And yet his wife got millions in deal for where the monies were.. Lives in NJ now..Go read that story youll be mad..

Madoff will look like a school girl. The amount of Madoff running around today with the govt now 14 year growth cycle. The govt has stepped in and stopped every down turn since 08. We have no clue who is operating just like this villain because of the govt assets only go higher programs

What else is there to do? What was it you were looking for?

Why not just get rid of the SEC?

Even Elon Musk knows that the SEC is malarkey.

Anyone have thoughts on the new SEC chair?

Why do THEY reform it when the system is benefiting them? Incentive!!!

@@dawitketema4150 Who is "they"?

Nepotism

There is one by my front door , no idea where it goes. So frustrating lol.

Same 😂

It’s okay. Have lived in my house for years and I still hit the wrong switch.

Lol😂 Ikr!!!

Not that hard if you are an accountant, plus the fact that Madoff's scheme had an extremely linear gains rate (this should have been the instant first Red Flag to the SEC.).

Wow! That was God's protection

Blessed

what about the poor schmuck that invested with him the day BEFORE he came out...theres got to be a person or organization that gave him their life savings the day before...u know they were losing their $hit.

@@markherring3513 No doubt. My stepfather's friend was simply lucky.

@@tdhat95 I guess God didn't feel like protecting all the others...

Yeap just like THE 'POPE' no one can imagine him being a fraud, but he SURE IS ONE OF THE INTI-CHRIST DEMONDS!!!!

To be fair…this scheme occurred before the sub-prime mortgage crisis was known by the public

Sounds like the same thing happening with certain other stocks today

I took many of those classes but snoozed through much of it. Still got through them and am happy I at least know what he's talking about.

He’s very impressive. I barely got thru high school algebra, failed nursing school twice because I couldn’t do the math. 😂

I have taken a lot of those courses too. I’m not a math guy. 😂

Madoff knew that the government regulatory bodies had no teeth, because they had been deliberately underfunded by right wingers for the last several decades. It's really interesting how scams flourish under Republican Administrations and how they flourish when we refuse to tax appropriately and actually fund the regulatory bodies that we have in our government. It's almost as though there's this entire "small government" project designed to make government look bad to ideologically warp the population or something.

Melange - when he said that a chill ran up my spine. A bit like how a secret serial killer can act as a good family man or volunteer to search for a victim he has murdered.

@@johnclifford1537 I get a similar feeling, and it makes me wonder; what was Madoff psychological profile. It's hard to believe that be harboured much empathy for the people he scammed or the effects his behavior could have on his close family and friends. But I just don't know, maybe he got caught up in something that grew out of his planned proportion, and his continuing of it was in some twisted way, his way of protecting his family.. (?)

@@Melange2 I think it is a bit of all those things. A God complex in that people begged and threw money at him to try and join the scheme, arrogance and hubris when it went so long undetected and finally and most uncomfortably the fact that he simply enjoyed the criminal activity and without the GFC he probably would not have been uncovered until after his death.

The Fed is up there too.