Justice/Smustice. You keep him behind bars on life support for a millennium and what ‘justice’ would that do?

Get the $$$ back to the folks cheated. He couldn’t have spent it. If they can’t get it out of him, put him to work and take everything he makes.

Punishing him does NOT solve a thing. These ‘capital crooks’ have been doing this for as long as the country’s been in existence and they ALL think they’re going to get away with it.

So, are you saying we shouldn’t punish him?

Seriously?

Madoff goes to jail, and a whole system is breathing again…what a crap ! A guy like Madoff was the cherry on the top of the cake, the dirty thing that grows on an already rotten fruit…150 years are the price to pay for being the black sheep.

The Geithner plan is failing miserably (as lots of people predicted) , the Beautiful Market is up again and stricly nothing has been done to prevent the world for the next (and surely very close now) bubble to grow and explode.

I bet he ‘dies’ the day before he goes to prison……..and we find him in Dubai with Kenny Boy.

Dirty, there is no real definition of proper punishment. It’s a difference of opinion with, virtually, everybody. Some want him dead. Some are okay with life in prison. Some want him to be punished physically. There is no perfect way, contrary to what people may think. However, taking him out of society is a good thing.

His was a minor ponzi scheme when going up against Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Also what’s the point in forcing him to hand over any money? What are they going to do about it, throw him in prison?

go ahead and delete this as off topic – I just want to ask when Matt’s latest on GS will be online. Tried to link to it, but it’s not up yet. Please get it online, and please don’t leave out Victor’s great illustrations. I’m hoping the delay is just summer lag and not fear of the big baddies.

Lock him up, rough him up, it don’t matter. But TD asked if ‘justice’ had been served. My point was the folks he cheated sure aren’t getting ‘anything’ out of him going to jail.

And no, I’m NOT saying let him go; I’m saying that his going to jail would not satisfy me were I one of his marks.

And as I said, his going to jail isn’t going to stop the next ‘clever capitalist’ from trying to pull a fast one.

Hit the books, track done the $$$. Get it back.

If person A steals the hope diamond and person B buys it from person A and interpol finds person B with the diamond, does person B get to keep it? Nope.

So, if person A (Madoff) ’stole’ $$$ and passed them on to someone else, go get it, track it down. It’s illegal $$$ no different than the hope diamond.

I have to side on the argument that Bernie Madoff is a small-time con man compared to Enron and all the investors and firms that tanked the economy. He should go to jail for double digit time (10 – 20 years) and return the money. However, 150 years does seem ridiculous compared to Skillings who only got 24 years. He was responsible for the massive blackouts in California.

Has anyone who was responsible for the current economic collapse is being held legally responisble? I don’t know, because I haven’t heard anything. From what I gathered, the people responsible has lobbied the politicians to make their shady dealings legal so they won’t get prosecuted.

Well, I guess, using Greg’s sick logic equating medicare, medicaid and social security to a ponzi scheme, wouldn’t the United Kingdom make OUR ‘assistance’ programs look like kibbles and bits?

Greg, that, seriously, is something right out of Yahoo Buzz!. Completely irrational.

Hmm, I figured that last little tidbit would go over like a fart in church with the Right Guard. Most of them seem to share the TR maxim, when asked if the U.S. would return the Panama Canal, “Why should we? We stole it fair and square.” (Allow me some literary license, please.)

The interesting thing that hasn’t been discussed very much is the fact he cheated his fellow Jews almost exclusively, not counting 401k participants whose company owners/HR VPs were Jewish and went with Madoff.

Also interesting who Madoff made Political contributions to:

$500 Obama, Barack (D)
$2,300 Merkley, Jeff (D)
$50,000 Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte (D)
$2,300 Saul, Andrew Marshall (R)
$2,300 Lautenberg, Frank R (D)

I’ll bet he mailed in that contribution to Obama. No grip ‘n grin photo ops on that one. Covering his poop-chute in case Obama won.

How much did he give Johnny Boy?

It doesn’t work that way, DD. Cash is a measure of value, not a physical artifact. In order for it to be an effective medium exchange it cannot retain memory of the route by which it is exchanged. Otherwise all transactions stand the potential either to add a premium or a discount face value, depending on the parties involved. That defeats the purpose of using currency. If you steal the hope diamond and liquidate to fund a massive drinking binge then your bartender comes out ahead and the poor sucker who got stuck with the diamond gets screwed. In this case, the investors got stuck with the hope diamond.

It is important to bear in
mind the way a ponzi scheme works. Crooks are continuously paying returns t
o early investors with more recent inflows. Because most of these folks were reivesting their returns, they were effectively buying and selling shares in the goose egg that was Madoff’s fund. So, there really isn’t much to speak of that could have been made off with. The puny share with which he financed a lavish lifestyle will hardly put a dent in the vast losses.

I think attacking Greg is a little shortsighted. Tim has extended this issue to the wider topic of what defines just wrt financial swindles. Entitlement programs are just as unsustainable and poorly planned as any of the aforementioned cases. Furthermore, the dishonesty by which the public is being misled into ignoring the impending financial disaster that will ensue as mounting liabilities come due approaches that of Enron, Worldcom, Madoff, etc. The principal difference is the several orders of magnitude dollar amount attached to each scam.

Bernie Madoff is actually going to be buried alive in the same box as Michael Jackson’s corpse. It’s been arranged by George Soros and Melinda Gates.

Jed Clampett

It’s not about those he betrayed but about those he is remaining loyal to till the end.

Sure, he’ll be the ‘Fall guy’ but in reality, 150 years will not be enough to repair all the other life.times he snoo.kered.
Follow the money, I’ve heard it said. That’s where the rats are, the pigs at the through, the traitors in the garden.
What is their purpose I wonder? Take it all, take it all off and for.eclose on people’s dreams.
In the Mean time, they plot to have paradise for themselves and deny it to the rest of us.
Thankless beasts.

Yes, put him to work among the people whose dreams he stole.
Make him work his fingers to the bone; along with his cro.oked wife, playing the victim when she’s just another ta.ran.tula. One man alone didn’t pull off this scheme, he had plo.tters at the top, turning their heads when ne.ces.sary, playing ost.rich the next. Who advised the O to the old NY guardian at the head of com.mer.ce?
Look in Argentina, I bet that’s where the money is going. Switzerland, their cof.fers have been getting full from the fools.

The nati.onalists don’t care about their nation, only world dom.ina.tion. The old ’soc.ialists’ now decry soc.ial.ism because they dislike soc.iety.
Every.one is ex.pen.dable, tag ‘em n bag ‘em, let God sort them out.
Well, who died and made you God? What kind of tag will they put on their own bod.y.bag?
Death adders I say. all they do is add to death and take away lives. And then they think they can fool the people with ‘I have sinned!!’ dro.pp.ing some cro.cod.ile tears. Beg.ging forgive.ness. While their piraña buddies are a pro.tec.ted spe.cies that con.tinue to feed on the end.ang.ered creat.ures of the ocean.

Flush ‘em, J, Flush ‘em.

There comes a time

Dirty D,

“Most of them seem to share the TR maxim, when asked if the U.S. would return the Panama Canal, “Why should we? We stole it fair and square.”

With all due respect to you and TR, we built it. We didn`t steal it. And then payed a legal lease for it`s use. If it wasn`t for us they`d still be riding their donkeys to get from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

And now the Chinese are running it. Another one of Jimmy Carter`s brilliant moves. What a loser.

Blood for Oil of Olay,

“Entitlement programs are just as unsustainable and poorly planned as any of the aforementioned cases. Furthermore, the dishonesty by which the public is being misled into ignoring the impending financial disaster that will ensue as mounting liabilities come due..”

Could not have said it better.

The public in this case is being scammed by the Fed Govt. And the massive increase of spending by Obama and the Dems is bringing that doomsday upon us much quicker.

We are heading into a perfect storm. With the Babyboomers soon to retire in huge numbers, how do you think we are going to pay for it all?

Ah yes, along comes Govt controlled Health Care! With Govt Bureaucrats deciding life and death. What a temptation!

Imagine a country where all the real old people are all ex politicians. No rationing for them.

Just a thought.

PC,

You reveal your ignorance of history to equal that of your same in humanities, sociology, economics and current affairs.

So, rather than give an actual alternative to the entitlement programs, you guys just rail on them? What is your solution to poverty and growing old? Do you guys actually still live with Josey Wales?

We may be the only industrialized nation that only TOILS with entitlement programs.

Instead of railing against entitlement programs that work, why don’t you come up with an alternative? I’m sure we’d LOVE to hear a hardcore, anti-government alternative to entitlement programs. I’m sure it would look something like the stone age looked…….

BREAKING NEWS: Ruppert Murdoch has held a press conference urging everybody to stop tuning in to his stations. He says he’s ran out of propoganda to spread and that he needs some time off to recharge his batteries and come up with a new smear machine. Seems people are starting to catch on and he needs to reformat the concubine of lies and innuendo.

I guess he’s starting to realize that there’s a lot less racists, bigots, and anti-government honks in this country than there used to be…………

Story courtesy of Have A Thought For Yourself productions.

Bubba-
Here’s an alternative: individual citizens can save for their own retirement and pay for their own health insurance, instead of depending on some benevolent authority to do it for them. We can even go ahead and make these outlays pre-tax to incentivize it. While we’re at it, we might as well create pools of money to support indigents and parasites that get left out in the cold. The money can come out of state budgets, so as to more specifically match funding to needs. We can also take all of the revenue that had been genrated by entitlement taxation and return it to people and businesses to spend or invest as they individually see fit. We can also demand the personal finance and economics be compulsory subjects in secondary education to better prepare folks for the decisions they will have to make on their own without the nanny state checking up.

Blood: Parasites? Really? Way to hide your position…….

In my world, the parasites are the oligarchs who, routinely, suppress, monopolize, and enslave.

Bubba- Then do you deny that there are people scamming the system? Its also pretty telling that you didnt even try to constructively debate Blood’s points…all of which prove ways that we can reform health care without turning to Big Brother and big debts to control things. Reform the current system, start treating health insurance like auto insurance (lower rates for healthier people), as opposed to starting a whole new system, which we dont have the money to establish anyway. Try fixing the current tax black hole rather than creating another one.

Breathe deep, take a step back, and back slowly away from overwraught liberal dogma…it may help you think constructively about problems from time to time.

Jed Clampett

yea, the whales are taking huge bites out of the health care system pie. While the little guppies, who barely make due with what they go, well, nobody protects them, not as ‘beau.ty.full’ as whales.

Merk,

You’re presupposing that after 100 years or so the system is going to ‘heal itself.’

Perhaps maybe YOU should step back and take a couple of breathes. It’s you seem to be hyper-ventilating.

Dennis– Perhaps, after all, in 100 years most of the boomers holding up the system will be gone, thus solving the problem.

But in all seriousness, I’m not hyperventilating, but I am concerned with wracking up a debt we cannot hope to repay. You may have hope in it, but the State has yet to instil hope in myself, and many others, in its dealings with money…so please excuse my skepticism concerning blind faith in big brother to appropriate my funds as needed…

Gee, Mork, thanks for the lecture. Now, after I’ve taken my deep breath, let me go ahead and debate Blood’s points, which you seem to agree with.

While all that may work, you’re still relying hugely on the private industry. And, like I said, it’s the oligarchs, which include private auto insurance, health insurance, oil, coal, tobacco, NRA, etc, etc, etc.

While you guys be anti-government, I’m not. I’m only anti-government when they deregulate the oligarchs.

You see, there’s two things to this argument that are fundamental and won’t change:

1. Humans needs organization and rules.
2. Poverty, as long as we use a currency system, will never go away, and if ignored, can bring a country down.

So, while entitlement programs are the antichrist to you guys, they’re necessary to keep us from becoming, well, Mexico……

Jed Clampett

If people were really concerned about ‘runaway debt’ and ‘deficits that can’t be repaid’ then perhaps they should be just as intensely bothered by ‘corporate entitlements’, ‘tax deferments for huge corporations’ and ‘corporate bailouts’.
However, they seem more concerned with ’small time scammers’ that will never put a dent in the huge system the way the sharks eat up huge billion dollar chunks and stash it away in Swiss banks, or Grand Cayman, or Riggs bank etc etc.
When we get rid of those FatCats, the CrumbBums will cease to need crumbs to exist on, and the plethora of wealth our planet provides will be shared equally by all… or the winds and waters will wash it all away and start anew.
The uncaring souls who watched it all go by the wayside without as much as a letter writing campaign will go to their artificial heaven to live forever in confusion, fear and violence.
They can have their matrix, I’ll stay in my web and help rebuild our spaceship Earth… or is it SOL?

Peace

Jed– Exactly right, its time to get the govt out of the business of subsidizing big businesses…and yes, many people have railed against the corporate bailout. It would have been better for the government to hold all toxic assets, then break up and sell off companies that went belly up, and allow the market to regulate and purge itself. Tax deferments are another matter…they spur economic incentive and growth. And ideal incentive would be following the Ireland model, slashing our corporate taxes, incouraging more business as opposed to stifling it and sending it overseas.

Bubba– I suppose disagree with your some of your “fundamental” points. Private industry, when properly regulated, does just fine. Also, humans dont clamor for order or rules. Humans, by nature, industrious and in want of freedom to pursue their desires and protect their natural rights. Humans, through common intrest, agree on a loose set of norms which allow each person, as an individual, to pursue their goals, while not infringing upon one another. Thus, a limited state, of limited interference, allows a better fostering of ingenuity and creativity without stifling bureaucracy and other rules.

And poverty will exist so long as human nature has a dark side that makes it easy to look the other way.

Entitlement programs are fine, as long as they actually go to the entitled. The mentally handicapped, or those inflicted with injuries out of their control. But its hight time that personal responsibility comes into play. At some point, one has to take responsibility for their poor actions and bad decisions, and learn to live with it, without expecting a handout from the government if they fail. With the risk of great success comes failure; one has to learn to live with it, and everything that has been done thus far in the series of bailout on up through soc.ialized dmv-care is lock step in the other direction, not even counting paying for it (which no one seems to acknowledge…HOW ARE WE GOING TO PAY FOR ALL OF THIS?)

Freeing people from govt intrusion, to follow their natural rights is what its all about…a Hobbesian style “Leviathan” at any cost is not necessarily a best solution, if personal choice and liberty is sacrificed.

Jed Clampett

Actually, I was thinking the opposite, get big business out of government, they have no self governance and open records are almost impossible to get.
The lawyers they have are crooked as a snake running from a roadrunner and like Ken Star showed with the GM affair, willing to shred every last bit of evidence to protect the guilty.

You think it’s government stifling, (or is that stiffing?) our ability to grow? Wow, Europeans and latin Americans get to enjoy almost a month of their time to themselves and their families, but in Corprica you are lucky if you are given two weeks, and even then, they won’t leave you alone with the constant phone calls.
So, if you ask me, it’s the corporation that steals your dreams and puts them in the hands of MIC.KEY mouse so he can make the girls ginies twitter with dreams of prosperity. BS WAKE THE FUDGE UP, you’re mired in excretions. Or is that a trickle down economy? I wan’t to turn this bottoms up.

Peace

Jed– Its a two way street one supposes.

As for your little “corprica” quip, yes I do think government influence is stifling. The failed track record in the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Former Yugoslavia, Former Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Cuba, Laos, Poland, and elsewhere attest to government meddling. If government run, centrally planned economies were so wonderful, China, Vietnam, and even Western European nations (most notable the Scandinavians) wouldnt be running away from it.

Yes, Europeans have longer vacations. They p.ay vastly higher taxes, and their countries have lower GDP’s to show for it. They also have the unique cushion of the European Union, which the US doest have.

Also, if America is so horrible for workers, no one is holding you here at gunpoint, as corporations provide jobs for the vast majority of the people here, and not all are the “evil corporation” stereotype…I highly doubt that you’re writing your posts from some soc.ialist utopia, now are you Jed? Perhaps its you thats mired in the constipations of failed soc.ialist rhetoric…people here work hard, and are darn proud of it.

Merk, your whole premise lies in the assumption that America is prospering under the current system.

Some would say NOT.

Too much government = Bad
Not enough government = Worse

Funny that people think we’re on the track to ‘too much government’ under Obama, but weren’t saying a word when our government overstepped its boundaries and invaded a sovereign nation based on lies and innuendo in order to enrich the, already monopolized, energy market. That wasn’t too much government?

Madeoff is a genius at Ponzi!
The USA Ponzi scheme is coming apart at the seams! Fire Tiny Tim and put Madeoff as the Treas. Sect,. and USA will enjoy another 20 years of Ponzi finance at the expense of the rest of the world.

150 years? Come on.

With his connections the schmuck will be back on the street in 90 years, tops.