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Bernie Madoff has died

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Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#141

Post by ryandrake »

cletus wrote: post #30

Here's the one lesson I really want us to all learn from this: the only thing the rich fear is prison because prison robs them of time. Fines are just the cost of doing business. There are many other scandals: the whole subprime disaster, pollution from plants and the like where no one went to prison and people really should've.

Corporations (which are usually the payer of fines for bad behavior) don't fear prison because they can't be physically imprisoned. You can't put Exxon in jail. And, lawmakers deliberately make it so damn hard to pierce the corporate liability veil and hold shareholders or directors personally liable for the corporation's actions.

So, we need to both move more towards prison and start digging in to which actual people inside bad corporations were responsible for deciding to do wrongdoing.

"BigCo settled and paid an insignificant $20M out of their river of money" is not very satisfying to read. "Joe Bigshot, former SVP at BigCo, was sentenced to 5 years in jail, and had to sell two of his nine houses to pay the $20M fine" is much better.

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#142

Post by ericbarrett »

kiba wrote: post #98
cletus wrote: post #30

Here's the one lesson I really want us to all learn from this: the only thing the rich fear is prison because prison robs them of time. Fines are just the cost of doing business. There are many other scandals: the whole subprime disaster, pollution from plants and the like where no one went to prison and people really should've.

What is this obsession with jailing people? Prison is pretty inhumane, especially in the context of a limited lifespan. Even if we're immortal, it's still inhumane. Moreover, how does making people go to prison fixes anything? It's just a way to assign punishment and blame people.

My prediction: Start giving perpetrators of financial crimes real prison time and you'll see major prison reform within a few years.

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#143

Post by rozim »

EMM_386 wrote: post #63

Always worth reading: The World's Largest Hedge Fund is a Fraud [PDF] Nov 7, 2005 Submission to the SEC - Harry Markopolos https://www.math.nyu.edu/faculty/avellane/madoffmarkopoulos....

It is really called out:

"Scenario #2 (Highly Likely) Madoff Securities is the world's largest Ponzi scheme"

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#144

Post by cogman10 »

pydry wrote: post #139
cogman10 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a sneaking suspicion that if more billionares spent time in prison, we'd see massive reform on the prison system towards the humane.

Or a class system for prisons.

Probably depends on how many prisons are private vs public.

I could definitely see a class system forming in private prisons (it is sort of there already). For public prisons, that's harder. They have to convince law makers to pass laws to enable them to get special treatment. That'd be pretty unpopular.

But, then again, MJ legalization is very popular and it still hasn't happened yet so who knows if policy popularity even sways politicians at this point.

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#145

Post by throwaway0a5e »

telesilla wrote: post #131
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like it simply because screwing the rich and middle as hard as the poors on trivial issues is gonna make it real clear real quick how excessive penalties for common civil offenses are and pretty soon thereafter the laws will change. HN has this fantasy of $10k speeding tickets. In reality it's gonna look like 100mph speed limits, $100 fines for you and $10 fines for your nanny.

Don't excessive speeding tickets lead to a loss of license? This is the perfect response. Perhaps a more sophisticated society will one day know our fears and punish us accordingly (cue film script).

>Don't excessive speeding tickets lead to a loss of license?

Usually.

>Perhaps a more sophisticated society will one day know our fears and punish us accordingly (cue film script).

That was a plot line in 1984 and IMO flies in the face of equality under law.

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#146

Post by galfarragem »

nemacol wrote: post #99
cletus wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The criminal justice system already does this extensively. Often people are sentenced to community service. So I guess your question is really should this be extended to more low-level offenses like minor traffic violations? It's an interesting question. In Switzerland, for example, speeding above a certain level ceases to be a fixed fine and is instead a percentage of your income. I'm a fan of that. Fixed fines tend…

I like the % of income idea.

Nit pick: so income zero means no fines?

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#147

Post by LanceH »

MereInterest wrote: post #70
_ea1k wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that I see how it could be a ponzi scheme. Ultimately, everyone has as many bitcoins as they believe that they have. The only question is how valuable are those coins? That should always be a function of market demand.

Money goes in, with the promise that you will get more money out at the end. While this works in some cases (e.g. investing in a business that produces value), in this case the only other money in the system comes from other people buying into it. Therefore, I believe bitcoin to be equivalent to a ponzi scheme. Implicit in this is the assumption that bitcoin does not provide value in itself, which is another discussi…

When you buy bitcoin, you get a share of the whole of bitcoin. You buy this at the current market value. You may hope it goes up, but it may not. You buy 1 bitcoin at market price, you have 1 bitcoin at market price.

In a ponzi scheme, you buy in at a fictional price and are paid interest derived from the investments of future investors. Bitcoin purchasers don't receive anything from future investments unless they actually sell, again at market price.

The word here is speculation, not ponzi. It's no different than buying/selling land that people may or may not want.

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#148

Post by tartoran »

finikytou wrote: post #83
obmelvin wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, it's ok to steal from people as long as most of them are rich? And, it's ok to steal as long as you only steal 25% of it?

I never said it was ok. I said he is in jail because he stole the rich. If he stole the poor he'd be on the trading desk of some bank in wall street. Who is in jail today for the subprime crisis?

If there was only one person orchestrating and solely benefitting from the subprime crisis it would be easy to put them in jail but there are too many to be put in jail, it’s the equivalent of ‘too big to fail’ but for people, ‘too many to pinpoint blame’ type of thinking. All these people knew it was going nowhere but they kept imflating the bubble because all their peers were doing it also and that despite numerous people raising res flags at the same time.

Maddoff was a dumb thief, and very cunning indeed but he operated in silence. That’s not to say the same thing about the others who ‘gamged up’ knowing that in case of failure many fingers would be pointed out in too many directions.

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#149

Post by minitoar »

cogman10 wrote: post #123
kiba wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is this obsession with jailing people? Prison is pretty inhumane, especially in the context of a limited lifespan. Even if we're immortal, it's still inhumane. Moreover, how does making people go to prison fixes anything? It's just a way to assign punishment and blame people.

What the US most commonly jail's people for (drug offenses) is barbaric. That said, the reason for jail is to not only rehabilitate but also to deter. The problem we have is that white collar crimes almost never result in jail time for the rich. The financial deterrent is just ineffective at stopping bad behavior. They can run the risk/rewards calculations and often come up with the conclusion that "we'll make more m…

I actually feel like Disney would be willing to pay people to spend 2 days in jail in order to keep their fireworks show. You’ve just moved the cost from a fine to a salary.

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#150

Post by mchusma »

beej71 wrote: post #21

That's too bad. I wanted him to live out his term. Given the amount of damage he caused, he has hardly paid his debt to society.

Doesn't that just cost society more? In actual dollars a 150 year sentence would cost taxpayers something like $10M (apparently prison costs like $81k/year in the US)
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