From the story: "He was driven, he said, by a desire to meet clients’ expectations of above-market returns “at any cost.”
He did it for them :lol:
Ralph
Madoff, OBAMA and Geitner, the news is just one great story after another. Didn’t you know, they’re all doing it for us.
“We only want what’s best for you.”
Can someone one explain what Madoff has to do with Obama, please?
here’s his confession:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2009/03/text_of_bernard_madoffs_court_statement.php
And a quote: “To the best of my recollection, my fraud began in the early 1990s.” He was arrested in December 2008; Obama took office in late January 2009. Can you explain the connection to Obama?
Or is it just that everything bad, everywhere, no matter when, is Obama’s fault? Watergate? Obama was alive then. Has he convincingly proven he wasn’t responsible? It has been suggested that Obama’s secret smoking habit caused the Hindenberg to explode. David?
I don’t know Mike, if the names of any these people is mentioned or they open their mouths, the market starts to go down. I think the market started tanking as soon as somebody thought the OBAMA presidency may actually be taken seriously and get elected.
“Or is it just that everything bad, everywhere, no matter when, is Obama’s fault? Watergate? Obama was alive then. Has he convincingly proven he wasn’t responsible? It has been suggested that Obama’s secret smoking habit caused the Hindenberg to explode. David?”
The liberal (or maybe the word is progressive) media blamed everything on Bush, so why isn’t it fair to let OBAMA take some of the credit? Geitner was before a Congressional Committee and they asked him all kinds of questions about the economy and he still couldn’t give a decent answer. I think the first one should have been, “Have you filed your 2008 taxes yet?” I guess it is just must be different standards for progressives and the rest of us.
Well said, Ric.
It’s Obama’s watch, now. He gets the credit when things go well, and, when things go not so well, too.
It’s perfectly reasonable for him to get the blame now–the buck stops on his desk. My point–and my question, as you’ll see if you read the post–is what does he have to do with Madoff, and the answer is “nothing.”
As to stocks going down, they have been UP all week, nearly 15% since tuesday. And the dollar is gaining in international currency trading. Who knows, could be temporary and tomorrow it’ll all be in the toilet
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/13/lawrence-summers-on-the-crisis/?hp
"Lawrence Summers, President Obama’s top economics adviser, said this morning that he saw early signs that the economic crisis was beginning to ease. But he emphasized that the crisis would not end anytime soon.
It’s too early to gauge the impact of the stimulus program, he said. But it has already begun saving the jobs of police officers and teachers; in New York alone, the stimulus may save the jobs of 14,000 teachers. “It is modestly encouraging that since it began to take shape, consumer spending in the U.S., which was collapsing during the holiday season, appears, according to a number of indicators, to have stabilized.”
Similarly, he argued that the government’s financial efforts rescue had caused “key credit spreads” to be “substantially lower” than they had been last fall.
Mr. Summers echoed President Obama’s recent comments that the stock market now appears to be undervalued. He said that the Dow Jones industrial average, adjusted for inflation, was trading at the same level early this week as it had in 1966.
“While there could be many ways to question this calculation,” he said, “that the market would be at essentially the same real level as it was in 1966 when there were no P.C.’s, no Internet, no flexible manufacturing, no software industry, and when our workforce was half and our net capital stock was a third of what it is today, may be regarded by some as the sale of the century.”
He didn’t add what many other long-term bulls believe is an important caveat: the market may still fall further.
A reduction in medical costs would likely lead to broad-based income growth, which would in turn create more sustainable economic growth. It is “no accident,” he said, that the best middle-class income growth over the past generation occurred in the late 1990s, when growth in medical costs was relatively tame. In recent years, a large share of worker compensation has gone not to salaries but to health benefits.
The uncertainty over the future energy costs is paralyzing investment in both traditional and alternative sources of energy. (He cited Ben Bernanke’s doctoral thesis as making this same point.)
“Let’s be realistic,” Mr. Summers said. “Sooner or later, we will have to reduce our dependence on foreign energy and contain our carbon emissions.”
Departing from his prepared remarks, he said that of all the criticisms of the stimulus bill, the “most difficult to understand was the claim that somehow increasing federal assistance for students to go college in the midst of the worst recession in 40 years had nothing to do with stimulating the economy.” He continued:” Isn’t it good to stop families from selling their houses to send their kids to college?”
He then joked that, as the father of two college-age daughters, he could assure people that there was no danger that any money that found its way into their hands would be saved."
I don’t trust him, I just hope he’s right
Of course, Mr Madoff is very sorry.
Very sorry he got caught, that is.
His lady wife was trying to ‘help out’ by removing $10m a day from the fund-store, and nobody noticed?
C’mon, gimme a break…
She should be in the cell next door, along with all the executives of the front companies he rigged up to cover up the fact hat he was covering up…
tac
www.ovgrs.org
I’d agree–the guilty plea probably is about shielding assets and hiding his family’s actions
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090314/ap_on_bi_ge/madoff_scandal_assets
Madoff had $823 million in assets.
He stole $62 billion. Where is the rest of the money?
Ralph
Not associated with Madoff the author of the second biggest Ponzi scheme in history (the Social Security System being the biggest), but sitting in the cell next to him should be Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Charlie Rangle, Ben Bernanke, et al
In 2002 the warning flags were out and attempts to reign in, regulate the failing mortgage industry were rebuffed by these self-serving criminals.
Sort of reminds me of the jokes:
What do you call a ship with 100 congressmen on board at the bottom of the ocean?
A good start.
What’s black and brown and looks good on a politician?
A pitbull.
Why are politicians able to handle snakes without getting bit?
Profession courtesy.
Actually we are too hard on politicians. It’s just that 98% of them give a bad name to the rest.