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New Photos! Madoffs at Play
Exactly how did the Madoffs spend Kevin Bacon’s money? VIEW NEW PHOTOS of Bernie, Ruth and the boys: Glorious vacations, beach houses—and the best living Ponzi can buy you.
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Paul Schrodt is a writer living in New York City. He has contributed to New York magazine, Radar, and Esquire.com.
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GPatton
Why not show photos some of the other scam artists at play? Read the piece in the latest Rolling Stone about how Wall Street has grifted trillions from the investing public. George Patton
amapola101
GPatton,I do not want to triivlize Maddof,and certainly not to sound bitter. But did you hit the nail with the hammer. Millions of everybodys moneys thrown out not only by wall streets,ceos of companies,politicians,in all their fringe dining,parties,flying all over the places,wine bottles of 500 dollars,(Manichevitz is good ),bankers, on and on. Highway Robbery, and what concerns me at a medical event recently, promoting all the health issues, the same old ,same old was happening.Believe me, I no longer, trust anyone.Its happening all over.
MikeJonze
Caveat emptor.
I do sorta feel for the charities and schools that lost money with Madoff or Stanford or whoever the next one is going to be, but seriously, it's your responsibility to do your own due diligence. A fool and his money.
Too many of these chuckleheads thought they'd found a way to get something for nothing and that's not the way it works. Claiming ignorance of the financial system and all those big, mean, bad bankers is not an excuse, especially for those 'feeder fund' jackasses that ought to be (and will be) sued for negligence.
"Investors should carefully consider the investment objectives, fees, charges, expenses and risks associated with an investment in a fund before investing." - sure it's boilerplate legalese, but ignore it at your peril.
Madoff broke the law and is going to jail for doing so. And before you start hyperventilating that Wall Street itself is criminal, remember that lawbreaking is already illegal. Investment professionals that break the law will be prosecuted and go to jail - just like any other criminal. If you just don't like the rules of the game or think the risk of fraud is too great, no problem, nobody is forcing you to use Wall Street for anything.
To pretend that what Madoff did is no different than your broker earning a fee to execute your transaction is like saying a cashier at Disney World is the same as the pickpocket that took your wallet.
joymars
Thank you for the RS reference. Wow. It's ugly isn't it?
Good ol' capitalism manages to show it's loathsome side every now and then. Remember the evil landlord image from the talkies? He kidnaps the young lovely and ties her to a railroad track? Our grandparents grew up with that image. They were no fools. We are.
EdmondDantes
George, you got the other photos in today's story on "How the Other Half Still Lives". And how they presumably still jack us all over and over. The other half mostly love Madoff because he shifted the focus off of them. Gotta love how scapegoats offer themselves up so conveniently for the other half. They kept Madoff around until they REALLY needed him: During this historic economic meltdown.
Siouxie921
The party's over.
joymars
Echhhh.
Is Ruthie like 4 feet tall or something? He's short. She must be a midget.
exploora
Obviously not, the average head is probably 8-10 inches in length, so Ruthie is probably about 4ft 11" -5ft 3" since her head is above the shoulder a bit, and assume this idiot has a huge head of 12" more I have created a rather large range of possibility, cause who knows how Madoff's head contracts and expands and inflates, anyway this is a better estimate than I can say for SEC's ability to measure based on common sense and principles.
piktor
Aww, shucks! Bernie will have so many fond memories at the federal prison system to share with his future husband!
wrathhound
Um . . . I haven't been following this super closely, but my impression is that the ponzi scheme kicked in seriously in the late eighties/early nineties, when Bernie squared a ledger he shouldn't have squared, couldn't wrestle the thing back on track, and was too arrogant to disclose the fact that he was off the rails completely. Big-haired late seventies/early eighties Bernie was probably kosher. Which, I'm sure, you know. So . . . the the 70s/80s snaps are what exactly? Petty? Vindictive? Blade the guy by all means, but not cheaply. Cheaply reflects badly on you, not him.
citivas
It is not at all clear that he was legit back then. That was one of his contradictory claims but others have said there is no evidence that he EVER was legit in the money management business and never made a trade going back decades...
cathtray
I'm with wrathhound, the copy doesn't quite jive with these photos--seems a bit of stretch to get all bitter about the time most of these pictures were taken.
exploora
[
January 5, 2009 - 10:52am
#1 (permalink)
from the above:
Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC was examined at least eight times in 16 years by the Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulators, who often came armed with suspicions.
SEC officials followed up on emails from a New York hedge fund that described Bernard Madoff's business practices as "highly unusual." The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the industry-run watchdog for brokerage firms, reported in 2007 that parts of the firm appeared to have no customers.
Mr. Madoff was interviewed at least twice by the SEC. But regulators never came close to uncovering the alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme that investigators now believe began in the 1970s.
The serial regulatory failures will be on display Monday when Congress holds a hearing to probe why the alleged fraud went undetected. Among the key witnesses is SEC Inspector General David Kotz, who was asked last month by the agency's chairman, Christopher Cox, to investigate the mess.] excerpted from http://www.rabble.ca/babble/international-news-and-politics/why-did-madoff- go-undetected
cathtray
Oh. I responded too quickly.
citizenQ
let's start with the 10 day bank hold on deposits and work up from there.
kansasrefugee
Was it just Kevin Bacon's money that was lost? I thought it was Kyra Sedgwick's as well . . . . .
janejax
Well, we know he didn't spend the money on expensive haircuts!
goldengateview
Once again, I am so thankful for an absence of the death penalty. I hope he has to scrub dozens of toilets every day until he dies.
EdmondDantes
And that the toilet users have horrible aim!
keepakeeper43
No surprises here.
The guy lived the good life.
Narcissist Sociopath.
MaliciousDisorder
You won't hear this on the MSM but this guy was a huge democrat supporter. If you check his records you'll find 98% of his campaign contributions and fund raising activities were for top democrats. Some of you better watch out for the smooth talking type. They hang with there own and they pray o n the ignorant.
Hawnzz
Bye Bye Bernie...
ramislander4
So this is a total non-story. None of the pictures are of Bernie doing particularly extravagant things. They're just pictures of a family with snide captions. Not that I'm a fan of the Madoffs, but this story has absolutely nothing to it.
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
hockeydog
Wait a minute pious one, wasn't Enron's big shebang engineered by a couple of goy-boys by the name of Jeffrey Skilling and Kenny-boy Lay? Since when do the Jews have a monopoly, or even a majority in the game of grift?
hockeydog
Oh, and speaking of the Big-Give-Away, what is the ethnic heritage of Hank Paulson and Timothy Geithner, Ben Bernake, and Warren Buffett???
Thank you.
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