<p>I was stunned when I heard about Bernie Madoff. Now I’m stunned to have heard about Markopoulis.</p>
<p>Why doesn’t anybody listen to the warnings? Don’t they believe them???</p>
<p>Missypie: What happened was that, because of the general market downturn, people wanted to take out their assets. Madoff didn’t have the assets to give them.</p>
<p>Do you think that for a while he tried to tell his investors that most had been lost due to terrible market conditions? Or can you not pay an annualized 18% for 10 months, then tell everyone they just lost all their money?</p>
<p>I read that Eliot Spitzer’s lost money with Madoff, too.</p>
<p>[Madoff’s</a> Clients - The New York Times](<a href=“http://projects.nytimes.com/creditcrisis/madoff_clients/table]Madoff’s”>http://projects.nytimes.com/creditcrisis/madoff_clients/table)</p>
<p>A .PDF link to the Markopolos memo that you may find easier to read: </p>
<p><a href=“http://online.wsj.com/documents/Madoff_SECdocs_20081217.pdf[/url]”>http://online.wsj.com/documents/Madoff_SECdocs_20081217.pdf</a></p>
<p>OMG…I work for two of those charities and I don’t mean go to the luncheon working. I know a few of those people. Eli Weisel…</p>
<p>It saddens me that Holocaust Survivor Elie Wiesel’s foundation is on this list.</p>
<p>It is as if Madoff has committed financial genocide to many Jewish charities and institutions.</p>
<p>This guy had to be a class A+ swindler. He could keep doing it as long as the market didn’t tank. He could keep taking in more investors and paying others a “return” out of their principal. Then when investors needed the capital and tried to withdraw it…guess what… </p>
<p>It seems like the last shoe will never drop.</p>
<p>I was reading yesterday that they may try to do this “clawback” thing where the former clients of his who got out their money and profits early on in the scheme will have to reimburse the newer clients who lost everything. A forensic accountant’s nightmare and they’re saying it could take years to figure out and are not sure its even possible but at least he seems to be cooperating and forthcoming about his various sets of books, etc. I still think he had help.</p>
<p>Tokenadult, thanks for posting that link. That is way more than I thought existed in terms of recognizing that Madoff was a fraud, and that document was written three years ago!</p>
<p>Many of his investors were long time friends and acquaintances - people he knew well from way back, which makes it even more unbelievable. I hope they throw the book at him and anyone else involved. He had a brother (not implicated) who was out of the picture in the day to day operations in the last six years or so - attending to the medical needs of a seriously ill child. I wonder if that’s when things started to go down this road.</p>
<p>I’d love to know how long he’s been doing the Ponzi part. 6 years? 20 years? H and I were talking about it this a.m. and had so many questions. Who takes over the investigation of it? Tax lawyers? SEC people? Forensic Accounting people? Where to even start? and did he invest the money people were giving him at all or just move cash around ? Its over my head but still fascinating. His poor wife.</p>
<p>This is going to be a double whammy for the many long term investors who over the years took out more than they invested. Any monies they received in excess of their investment will have to be returned for distribution to people seeking return of their principle. There are no profits in a Ponzi scheme, only stolen property. </p>
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<p>The government deemed it necessary to take her passport to.</p>
<p>[Pam</a> Martens: Madoff’s Money Trail Leads to Washington](<a href=“http://www.counterpunch.org/martens12222008.html]Pam”>http://www.counterpunch.org/martens12222008.html)</p>
<p>There are no stupid questions, right?</p>
<p>Did the 50 billion ever exist? Was it ever real money or was it simply a value ascribed to shares of ownership in something? The value simply existed due to likely demand, correct?</p>
<p>If it ever truly existed as anything but paper value, where is it now? Medoff did not spend 50 billion on Jaguars or Jewelry…where is it? </p>
<p>Sorry, conservation of energy is very meaningful to me. The idea that there was 50,000,000,000 of something and now it is ‘gone’ honestly defies logic, at least to my little logical brain.</p>
<p>Explain me, please.</p>
<p>anitaw, great question! It is not clear to me how much money was given to Madoff for investment. I have seen a $17bil number which seems likely. If he received $17bil from investors, then the $50bil might only be what the investors were told their original investment was worth. But instead of actually growing that $17bil to $50bil he actually used the money to pay dividends and salaries and buy hannukah presents for his kids and grandchildren. So if dividends were paid, then some investors already got back some of their money over time. But I am not really answering your question… it is a good one! What did happen to that $50bil?</p>
<p>Fees paid out to investment houses that recommended Madoff, dividends of investment, his 4 mansions or penthouses, salaries paid to workers, some money stashed in a Swiss bank account, and that’s where all the money went to.
BTW, I read dividends paid out have to be returned to investors.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No</p>
<p>The real loss is the total amount of initial principle that people invested. The 50 Billion number refers to the aggregate amount of real money invested PLUS the phony profits reported over many years. </p>
<p>Profits that never existed can not be counted as losses upon their disappearance.</p>
<p>The 50 billion is what investors thought they had. Don’t know if it includes the taxes they paid for the dividend, interest and realized gains that were falsely reported.</p>
<p>It appears even those who got funds out over the last few years might not be home free. The judge could demand the money back as ill-gotten gains. OUCH!!</p>