Madoff pleads guilty

[Fairweather Pure]

No surprise really.

I'm watching a Fox analyst explain that the victims who lost money in the ponzi scheme are innocent people who do not take classes on the stock market and were simply swindled out of thier money. This EXACT SAME analyst, only a month ago, decried the relief to families of the mortgage crisis saying they were taking no personal responsibility for not having researched thier home loans. I love Fox News!

[Drasta]

yea, i just heard on cnn that hes going to jail and isnt gonna be sitting in his nice condo or whatever anymore ... i hope they seize all his assets, sell them, and repay the people, if they cant find the money

[Leonaerd]

From what I understand, they're estimating a little under $1B in assets that will be distributed back to people. What he did with the other $49B is hard to imagine.

[Ashur]

I imagine a lot/most of it went back to older investors to show how their money was working (that's what a Ponzi scam does... it uses new investment to show return to original investors in ye old pyramid scam style). But these same people naturally want their original investment back as well, but it's gone baby gone.

[Gzette]

most of the $50 billion never existed. Actual estimates of money (deposits) that went poof is around $12-16 billion. The $50 billion (actually more like $64 billion) comes from the false paperwork people received since he started his scheme during a recession in the 1990s. Those statements show consistent, nonexistent 12% returns over years and years. This mess will continue to get uglier and uglier as lawyers attempt to extract losses from those companies and individuals lucky enough to withdraw their "profits" prior to the house of cards collapsing. It's like a bankruptcy on crack.

A fair punishment would be to seize all remaining assets of his immediate family, sending them to the poor hosue as he sent so many Americans who thought they were being responsible. There are reports his wife was able to withdraw something like $15 million a few weeks prior to the shit hitting the fan.

[miir]

Haha holy fuck, 150 years!

[Animalor]

He should kill someone in jail or something. That'll probably get 75 years knocked off the top.

[Sabek]

most of the $50 billion never existed. Actual estimates of money (deposits) that went poof is around $12-16 billion. The $50 billion (actually more like $64 billion) comes from the false paperwork people received since he started his scheme during a recession in the 1990s. Those statements show consistent, nonexistent 12% returns over years and years. This mess will continue to get uglier and uglier as lawyers attempt to extract losses from those companies and individuals lucky enough to withdraw their "profits" prior to the house of cards collapsing. It's like a bankruptcy on crack.

A fair punishment would be to seize all remaining assets of his immediate family, sending them to the poor hosue as he sent so many Americans who thought they were being responsible. There are reports his wife was able to withdraw something like $15 million a few weeks prior to the shit hitting the fan.

CNN said they seized 1.7B of assets from him and his family.
They basically left his wife with $2.5 Million.

[Gzette]

that's still too much. Maybe he'll find a way to fake a heart attack like Enron's Kenneth Lay. That allowed the family to keep a sizable portion of remaining funds.