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Bernie Madoff has died

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Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#381

Post by V-2 »

dimitrios1 wrote: post #227
daniel-cussen wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Order the company to operate out of a prison complex, under guard surveillance, with monitored phone calls, the works. Every employee must go there for his entire shift, no telecommuting.

They'll carve out exceptions for the ones responsible at the top. You'll just be penalizing the common wage earner who have to feed their families.

Even if they didn't make any exceptions, still, why should regular level employees get punished for something over which they've never held any responsibility whatsoever?

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#382

Post by spaceflunky »

lordnacho wrote: post #90

I remember when this happened, I was running a hedge fund. Supposedly he was doing collars (split-strike conversions) to make this money, but it just seemed implausible to me at the time, since I traded options. I figured he just punted futures, nice and easy way to sorta hug the index (I hadn't seen his "returns"), maybe Martingale it and get lucky until you're not so lucky. But then it turned out he wasn't doing an…

Can you please explain what it means to "do a collars" and "punt futures to hug the index"?

I'm partly interested and partly think you're making these words up :)

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#383

Post by elliekelly »

Bukhmanizer wrote: post #136
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.

As I posted a couple days ago, I have my doubts about whether Madoff actually was that worried about prison. Seems to me like he lived like a literal king until he was 70, then went to jail. Maybe 70 year old Madoff didn’t want to go to jail, but 40 year old Madoff may have been more than happy to make that deal. Seems to me that someone who was trying to avoid jail time would have spend more effort trying to amelior…

And he fell on the sword so his sons could walk. There is absolutely no way they were both in the dark.

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#384

Post by andrepd »

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.

Fines are also fine (no pun intended) if they are massively more expensive than the action they are punishing. In short they must make the risk-adjusted cost of doing $illegal_thing larger than the benefit from doing it.

Fining a corporation 20 million for stealing 500 million... I mean I don't need to point how ridiculous this is.

Of course, direct personal responsibility for the people calling the shots. Someone robbing a liquor store causes an infinitesimal amount of damage and misery compared to what powerful corpos lead by powerful men can cause.

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#385

Post by [deleted] »

elliekelly wrote: post #383
Bukhmanizer wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I posted a couple days ago, I have my doubts about whether Madoff actually was that worried about prison. Seems to me like he lived like a literal king until he was 70, then went to jail. Maybe 70 year old Madoff didn’t want to go to jail, but 40 year old Madoff may have been more than happy to make that deal. Seems to me that someone who was trying to avoid jail time would have spend more effort trying to amelior…

And he fell on the sword so his sons could walk. There is absolutely no way they were both in the dark.

[deleted]

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#386

Post by m-p-3 »

ryandrake wrote: post #141
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 peopl…

I'm against the death penalty, but I would have no problem with seeing a corporation put to death in the worst situations.

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#387

Post by MengerSponge »

Cd00d wrote: post #376
MengerSponge wrote: post #117

Sounds like I'm gonna have a beer and rewatch "The Other Guys" tonight

I don't see the connection. A cursory search of that movie's wikipedia page doesn't return anything for 'mado'... Why?

It's funny. You should watch it too. It isn't a documentary, but it's about a forensic accountant who is chasing down a crooked billionaire, while colleagues who focus on flashy street-level enforcement get all the accolades.

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#389

Post by Waterluvian »

ryandrake wrote: post #141
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 peopl…

Real consequences for the officers and a complete rejection of "we had no idea this was happening!"

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#390

Post by knuthsat »

soneca wrote: post #33

Madoff made his ponzi scheme last 17 years with a limited network. Imagine how long a ponzi scheme accessible by the whole world could last. Possibly forever (or at least longer than my lifetime). I am thinking about Bitcoin here.

Funny thing is that a bunch of human activities are pyramid schemes. From academia, pension funds, real estate or whatever.
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