Continue reading “THIS DAY IN HISTORY – Billionaire conman Bernard Madoff arrested – 2008”
Tag: Bernie Madoff
The Madoff Cover-Up
Guest Post by Martin Armstrong
For those who just read the news and believe whatever they report, in the industry, everyone talks all the time. If Madoff was losing billions trading, everyone would have known. It is one thing to have a portfolio of assets that itself collapses in value which would NOT involve trading, then that presents a more private issue but everyone would suspect something for the news would be circulating around as to what he bought. There is just no way money vanishes. The likely prospect is that Bernie was aware of the dark side of Wall Street and perhaps facilitated that for a price.
THE LUCK OF THE IRISH
Submitted by Hardscrabble Farmer
Humiliating Hat Trick: Wealthy NY Family Invested In Enron, Madoff, FTX
A wealthy New York family has achieved a humiliating hat trick, having invested with Bernie Madoff, Enron and now, FTX, according to the Financial Times.
Thanks to the family’s philanthropy — which has benefitted the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Yeshiva University and Harvard among others — “Belfer” is a name familiar to many in New York’s high society. Unfortunately, it’s now associated with three legendary financial catastrophes.
The Belfer family’s wealth primarily came from the Belco Petroleum Corporation founded by the late Arthur Belfer, a Polish-born immigrant.
The Belfer family was among the largest shareholders of Enron. Honored by Fortune magazine for six straight years as “America’s Most Innovative Company,” the energy and commodities company exploded in spectacular fashion in 2001.
HEROES & WHORES
With the new Netflix documentary about the Madoff fraud out, I thought reposting my take on the Wall Street scumbags who perpetuated this fraud and the corrupt losers at the SEC who turned a blind eye, would be worthwhile. Written 5 years ago.
“Certainly one of the most important things I learned is that numbers can be deceiving. There is a logic to mathematics, but there is also the underlying human element that must be considered. Numbers can’t lie, but the people who create those numbers can and do. As so many people have learned, forgetting to include human nature in an equation can be devastating.” ― Harry Markopolos, No One Would Listen
The quote I used from Harry Markopolos’ No One Would Listen book about the Bernie Madoff ponzi scheme in my last article triggered a bittersweet recollection. For me, the experience captured the true nature of our warped financial markets, a culture glorifying wealthy arrogant criminal assholes, while ignoring or ridiculing honest, hard working, highly intelligent truth tellers.
AMERICAN PONZI
Guest Post by Hardscrabble Farmer
The first question that came to mind as the closing credits rolled on the Netflix documentary Madoff The Monster of Wall Street was why? Why would they make a movie like this that connects as many dots? The film lays out so many of the obvious truths of how America and the economic systems we have come to depend upon are nothing more than a collosal fiction, a fraud operating at every level and throughout every aspect of our Government, and the institutions we have come to think of as our culture.
And then it hit me.
The purpose of this revelation is to serve as cover for the even larger Ponzi scheme that is SBF about to unravel, and eventually, if I suspect correctly, the death blow that will be discovered when Black Rock is finally shown to be the exact same kind of Ponzi scheme as all the others. When the final downturn in our economic collapse goes into full Krakatoa and wipes out every last vestige of economic stability in the Western World.
THIS DAY IN HISTORY – Billionaire conman Bernard Madoff arrested – 2008
Jon Stewart: How Redditors Exposed The Stock Market
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THIS DAY IN HISTORY – Billionaire conman Bernard Madoff arrested – 2008
On December 11, 2008, financier Bernard Madoff is arrested at his New York City apartment and charged with masterminding a long-running Ponzi scheme later estimated to involve around $65 billion, making it one of the biggest investment frauds in Wall Street history.
Continue reading “THIS DAY IN HISTORY – Billionaire conman Bernard Madoff arrested – 2008”
Bernie Madoff says he’s dying, asks to be freed from prison
NEW YORK — Epic Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff asked a federal judge Wednesday to grant him a “compassionate release” from his 150-year prison sentence, saying he has terminal kidney failure and less than 18 months to live.
Madoff’s attorney filed court papers saying the 81-year-old has end-stage kidney disease and other “chronic, serious medical conditions,” including hypertension and cardiovascular disease.
“There’s no cure for my type of disease,” Madoff told The Washington Post in a phone interview, expressing remorse for orchestrating the largest Ponzi scheme in history.
Continue reading “Bernie Madoff says he’s dying, asks to be freed from prison”
THIS DAY IN HISTORY – Billionaire conman Bernard Madoff arrested – 2008
On December 11, 2008, financier Bernard Madoff is arrested at his New York City apartment and charged with masterminding a long-running Ponzi scheme later estimated to involve around $65 billion, making it one of the biggest investment frauds in Wall Street history.
Continue reading “THIS DAY IN HISTORY – Billionaire conman Bernard Madoff arrested – 2008”
THIS DAY IN HISTORY – Billionaire conman Bernard Madoff arrested – 2008
On this day in 2008, financier Bernard Madoff is arrested at his New York City apartment and charged with masterminding a long-running Ponzi scheme later estimated to involve around $65 billion, making it one of the biggest investment frauds in Wall Street history.
Continue reading “THIS DAY IN HISTORY – Billionaire conman Bernard Madoff arrested – 2008”
THIS DAY IN HISTORY – Billionaire conman Bernard Madoff arrested – 2008
On this day in 2008, financier Bernard Madoff is arrested at his New York City apartment and charged with masterminding a long-running Ponzi scheme later estimated to involve around $65 billion, making it one of the biggest investment frauds in Wall Street history.
Continue reading “THIS DAY IN HISTORY – Billionaire conman Bernard Madoff arrested – 2008”
IT’S NOT THE BREXIT STUPID
Just over a week ago the world was coming unglued, as enough British citizens grew a pair and spit in the face of the EU establishment and global elite by voting to exit the EU. The fear mongering by central bankers and their puppet political hacks failed to deter people who have become sick and tired of being abused and pillaged by bureaucrats working on behalf of bankers and billionaires.
Stock markets around the world plummeted on Thursday and Friday. The world braced for another Black Monday. The phone lines were buzzing between central bankers around the world over the weekend as their banker constituents demanded relief. If one thing has been proven over the last seven years, its a coordinated effort between central bankers and Wall Street banks to rig the stock market higher can work over a short time period.
The titans of finance were able to once again confound short-sellers and the prophets of doom with a 5% surge from the Friday lows over the next week. It was surely a coincidence the Fed declared all Wall Street banks, safe, sound, and capable of buying back their stocks to the tune of billions early in the week.
These insolvent zombies were now free to borrow billions to buy back their overvalued stocks, destroying shareholder value, while boosting executive compensation. Poor Jamie Dimon is struggling to get by on his $27 million per year. The Wall Street banks obliged by immediately announcing multi-billion dollar buyback schemes to capitalize on the short-term trading mentality of the 30 year old MBA trading geniuses who bought the news without worrying about the actual value of the stocks they were buying.
Bernie Sanders Supporters Endorse BERNIE MADOFF as Running Mate for Vice President
KEEPING UP
FOURTH TURNING: CRISIS OF TRUST – PART 2
In Part 1 of this article I discussed the catalyst spark which ignited this Fourth Turning and the seemingly delayed regeneracy. In Part 2 I will ponder possible Grey Champion prophet generation leaders who could arise during the regeneracy.
The nearly seven year reign of Barack Obama has resulted in furthering wealth inequality, in spite of his socialistic rhetoric. Notwithstanding his Nobel Peace Prize, military spending is at all-time highs and we are engaged in actual and proxy wars across the Middle East and in the Ukraine. Race relations have never been worse. Poverty levels have never been worse. Real median household income is lower than it was in 1989. Real hourly wages are at 50 year lows. Home ownership has plunged to 50 year lows, as middle class workers have been kicked out of their homes and young people are saddled with so much student loan debt and bleak job opportunities they will never have an opportunity to own. The ownership society pushed by Clinton and Bush, with the proliferation of Wall Street created “exotic” subprime mortgages, peddled to people incapable of paying their mortgages, blew up the world in 2008, and the fall out will last for decades.
Meanwhile, Wall Street banks have reaped $700 billion of ill-gotten profits since 2010 as the Federal Reserve has handed them trillions of interest free funds to gamble with, while rigging the financial markets, and paying their executives obscene bonuses. The hubris and arrogance of the Wall Street titans is appalling, as they buy politicians, write toothless financial regulations (Dodd Frank) for their bought off politicians to pass, report fraudulent financial results with the stamp of approval from the FASB, blatantly rig interest rate, currency, stock and commodities markets, and use deception and propaganda to distract and mislead the public through their corporate media mouthpieces – dependent upon Wall Street advertising revenue to thrive.