Who's Going To Put Humpty Dumpty's Egg Back Together?

The Courts want to strip Bernie Madoff of more money, $171 billion, than it seems possible for one man to own.

My question may be stupid.

How is it possible to accurately calculate who should be compensated and by how much?

Don't forget that the totals in the accounts were bogus, because the money wasn't invested. The payments/investments the conned clients paid were used to give them all "interest payments." The clients' accounts were false, inflated.

Can a team of auditors really discover how much outside money the clients gave Madoff? And then, how do they calculate the percentages of what should be returned and to whom?

Crime Pays Someone -- The Madoff Movie

Bernie Made-Off with lots of other people's money. And now there's going to be a movie about him.

No surprise. Crooks generally make interesting characters. I once went to a lecture about book-writing. We were told that there must be some conflict.

The Bernie Madoff story has lots of conflict. On one hand, he lived a very moral life. He was involved in Jewish organizations and seemed the model super-rich Jew. Unknown to almost everyone, he was really a top con artist.

Now, the real billion dollar que$tion for the script-writers will be:

"Who else was in cahoots?"

So far, I haven't heard any real answers.

Did his wife know?

Did Madoff's sons know?

I think (of course, I can't prove anything being just a blogger, neither police nor Private Investigator) that his sons knew. They, both generations, feared that the Ponzi Scheme would soon be discovered. So they decided on one last scam. The sons would turn him in claiming that they had just discovered the truth. Bernie would swear up and down that his precious sons were totally innocent, as if anyone with half a brain could really believe the guy who had been lying and tricking even his best friends all these years.

Well, fools, like tigers, don't change their stripes so fast. Just look at Israel, which keeps on giving the Arab terrorists Land, gestures etc to encourage them to make peace, and all Israel gets in exchange is terrorism, war and threats.

Will this movie really be made? And if so, who gets the profits?

Taking Responsibility, Truman, Obama and Madoff

Harry Truman was known for the saying:
The Buck Stops Here

And it seems like Obama has decided to use his version of it:

“Washington is all in a tizzy over who’s at fault,” Mr. Obama said. “Some say it’s the Democrats’ fault, the Republicans’ fault. Listen, I’ll take responsibility. I’m the president.”

Only time will show if it's just words, or will be really do something.

And continuing in the realm of financial responsibility, Bernie Madoff is no longer the sole "arrestee" in his Ponzi scheme. It did seem impossible to believe that he alone was/is the only person aware that his investment business was a fraud, fake and illusion. It seems obvious to many or most that he is protecting his family. The choreography of his sons turning him in is just too, too much of a screenplay.

Finally, his accountant was arrested, faces charges. David G. Friehling, one of the primary auditors for Bernard L. Madoff, is now out on bail.

The acting United States attorney, Lev L. Dassin, said that while Mr. Friehling was not accused of knowing about Mr. Madoff’s scheme, he was charged with deceiving investors for years by falsely certifying that he had audited Mr. Madoff’s books.

Is Friehling like a Kashrut inspector who won't eat from the places he signs the OK for?

And what will Obama do besides taking verbal responsibility for the AIG farce?

What is "taking responsibility?"

Madoff Shouldn't Complain

Is American justice blinded by the flash of billion$ of dollar$?

The entire Bernie Madoff affair just proves that some people get a better deal from American justice than others. An ordinary person would have been jailed from day one, and an ordinary person's top employees would have been charged and jailed, too.

There's no way anyone can convince me that Madoff's sons and other high-ranking officials in his Ponzi scam pyramid business weren't aware of the truth that there were no investments and the "income" sent to investors was just the money that new investors entrusted to them.



No surprise that Madoff's lawyers are trying to get him more time at home to "tie up loose ends," or whatever excuse they can come up with.

"For many years up until my arrest I operated a Ponzi scheme," Madoff told the court. "When I began I thought it would be over shortly, it became difficult to stop." (complete article)

Does such a man deserve to be free? And yes, although he has been and would be "monitored," he would only be "restricted" to a home and conditions more luxurious than most people could imagine or afford.

I have no doubt that the investigators haven't discovered the full entire truth, and if Bernard Madoff was to be kept in jail, incommunicado, there's a better chance they'd find out who else was involved. They haven't cleaned out the "can of worms" much. One big snake's not the whole story. There's some deal, which hasn't been revealed yet, and when it is, it will probably stink even more.

Madoff's victims are angry and a lot poorer than they had ever imagined, but I doubt if any will become homeless tent dwellers like these (hat tip Boris):

A House Of Cards and Monopoly Money

Nobody really knows how much money Bernie Madoff "lost" or "misused."

If the hype is right, then it's mostly imaginary profits people that they had which make up the really big money. The real money is the original money people invested with him.

Then people kept the money with him and got friends and family to invest, because he was claiming great success. But in actuality, the "profits" in their accounts never existed. It was one big scam.

In realty, people lost their investments, but in the big picture, they lost their dreams...

What Is Taking So Long?

Olmert to be interrogated by National Fraud Squad for 14th time

Maybe they like the refreshments served by the Prime Minister's staff? He certainly has the budget for the best. Who's paying for his lawyers?

This whole business makes me sick. Anybody else who's suspected of a fraction of the charges would have his life totally destroyed, and here we, the poor taxpayers, are still keeping that guy in suits, fine cigars and fancy pens.

But America's no better, considering that Bernie Madoff has been allowed to stay in his luxurious home... And for some peculiar reason the police have been ignoring his family's probable involvement.

A "Corny" Con

We've been had, those of us who passed around, read and got emotional, because of that moving Holocaust story of the young boy who who was given apples by a girl when he was imprisoned by the Nazis, and then, too amazing to be true, but the accompanying note said that it was, ended up meeting the woman after the war and marrying her.


This was considered a great story, and he was asked to expand his memoirs into a book. So he did.

Here's the Epilogue:

NEW YORK – The publisher of a disputed Holocaust memoir has canceled the book, adding the name Herman Rosenblat to an increasingly long line of literary fakers and bringing down with a crash his story — embraced by Oprah Winfrey, among others — of meeting his future wife at a Nazi concentration camp.
Rosenblat's "Angel at the Fence" had been scheduled to come out in February, but Berkley Books, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA), withdrew the memoir Saturday following allegations by scholars, friends and family members that his tale was untrue.
"Berkley Books is canceling publication of Angel at the Fence after receiving new information from Herman Rosenblat's agent, Andrea Hurst," the publisher said in a statement. "Berkley will demand that the author and the agent return all money that they have received for this work." (complete article)

It fits a holiday period in which we learned from Bernie Madoff that if things seem too good to be true, they probably aren't. At least passing around an email didn't cost us money.

And I still insist that I'm more a pragmatist than a cynic when I say that the Olmert-Livni-Barak Troika's latest war is just a campaign gimmick, a very dangerous and deadly one.

Self-Hating Jew #2

Sammy, of Yid with Lid, has opened nominations for the Second Annual Self-Hating Jews Contest.

I'm glad that I took my time, because if I had sent in a nomination when I first got his notice, I would have been too early for this one.

What can I say as an introduction, other than money speaks. Yes, when it comes to:

• money


• Jews


• scandal

I'm sure that underneath the self-serving con man who swindled more billions of dollars than any of us imagine existed, is a self-hating Jew.

Yes! It's Bernie Madoff!

A Big Question About The Madoff Scandal

Considering how enormous his business is/was, and considering how many people work there, how is it that more people haven't been arrested for the massive Ponzi scheme?

It's hard to believe that only one person, Bernie Madoff, knew that there was no money to cover.

Is Madoff covering up? Or are there more surprises to come?

Herod's Remains

Yesterday I was at Herodian, the remains of Herod's Palace. It was the second tour of the Matan course I'm taking.

As preparation, we had two shiurim (lectures) about the Prophet Amos and his times, one by Shani Taragin and the other by Yael Ziegler. The tour was led by Shuli Mishkin. We began at the "Environmental Sculpture" at Ramat Rachel.

The "times of" Amos was similar to our own, very affluent. Amos, the itinerant noked, 'poked holes" in more than the ears of the flocks, he pointed out the sins of those who appeared righteous. This was so ironic during the week that Bernard Madoff was exposed as fraud and con man.

Herod's own background isn't very clear, according to Mishkin. Was he, or wasn't he Jewish? One thing for sure. He was very ambitious, an edifice builder, more skilled than Ehud Olmert for sure.







Herodian took a "mole hill" and turned it into a massive mountain palace, viewable from miles around. Even today, thousands of years later, it's a landmark which can't be ignored.















We live in a plastic, digital, virtual world. What will be left of our material lives and times even a hundred years from now?

The Jewish People have a history, much longer and greater than any other nation. In today's time, archaeologists are discovering proofs of the Biblical narrative. Every year when I listen to the Megilat Ester (the Scroll of Esther) on Purim, I'm awed by the fact that thousand of years later, we are still observing the instructions in it. But, ironically, though Herod's buildings and cities still remain impressive, it's only the physical, the material.

The spirit of the Jewish People remains strong and eternal. May we be worthy of G-d's Redemption, bimhaira b'yamainu, speedily in our days.

Same'ach b'Chelko, To Be Satisfied With What You Have

According to Pirkei Avot, Ethics of the Fathers, a "very commons sense" book of philosophy, the truly rich is the one Same'ach b'Chelko, Satisfied With What He Has.

As the news is filled with stories of "the great scam," how people lost fortunes, larger than what most people earn in a year, all I can think of is the simple wisdom in Pirkei Avot.

Bernard Madoff preyed on the super wealthy, the middle class and all sorts of endowment funds, charities, pensions etc. Who else would have the masses of money adding up to tens of billions of dollars?

Here in Israel, we're hearing about the charity funds which are now empty, but in the states, and possibly immigrants living in Israel, ordinary people are discovering that they've lost their investments and won't be getting the interest they'd been living on.

Back to Pirkei Avot:

7. He would also say: One who increases flesh, increases worms; one who increases possessions, increases worry; one who increases wives, increases witchcraft; one who increases maidservants, increases promiscuity; one who increases man-servants, increases thievery; one who increases Torah, increases life; one who increases study, increases wisdom; one who increases counsel, increases understanding; one who increases charity, increases peace. One who acquires a good name, acquired it for himself; one who acquires the words of Torah, has acquired life in the World to Come.