Comments on: The Man Who Figured Out Madoff's Scheme

Tells 60 Minutes Many Suspected Madoff Fraud; Says SEC Is Incapable Of Finding Fraud

[rired48]

Harry Markopolos is an American hero. These are the individuals you talk about at the dinner table with your children... not a basketball or baseball star.

[baseball1210]

I'm sorry, but am I supposed to feel bad for all these "small people" (ppl who saved their whole lives to accumulate a substantial net worth) who lost money with Madoff?? I think the real fools here are those that put all their eggs in one basket and gave money to this man. Remember that old phrase if it sounds too good to be true it probably is? I'm sorry, I have no sympathy for that 80 year old couple in the story who had to sell all their homes. After 80 years of life experience, you would think they would know better not to put all eggs in one basket, and to know that something strange is up when (a) they were getting returns of 5% when the market was down -40%, and (b) there were very few down quarters, and (c) the lack of transparency.

[u-r-right]

I know it's a drop in the bucket but they should take away all that Madoff has and disperse the cash value evenly among all his victims. Then charge Madoff for his room, board and three square meals per diem as he rots away in jail.

[keevers5]

"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security" Declaration of Independence, 1776.

[keevers5]

"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security" Thomas Jefferson,1775

[News-Watcher]

Is it too much of a reach to think this Fellow would make a SPLENDID, NO BRAINER choice for the is administration's cabinet over Ghetiner?

[pjdarling12]

Prior information not acted on in the WTC event, invasion of Iraq for weapons that don't exist, collapse of the banking system when signs of poor lending practices were obvious and now this. All of it under the noses of the people who are sworn to protect the citizens of this country.

At the same time our sons and daughters are killed and maimed in an ill-conceived war,
our jobs have gone out of the country, our economy is collapsing and indiviuals have lost huge sums of money.

Something is terribly wrong.

[bosco7]

Markopolis states he contacted the SEC 5 times, all without positive results. I would like to know if the SEC is the sole government entity with culpability here. The FBI is the federal agency which has jurisdication over a variety of white collar criminal acts, several of which Madoff has now been charged with since he in essence, turned himself in. Did the SEC refer any of the Markopolis letters to the FBI for criminal investigation? Does the FBI have anything in its computer files, independent of Markopolis or the SEC, showing that it too was contacted by individuals who raised concerns about Madoff? If so, what did they do about it?

[the74blaster]

Estimates are that it will cost 50 Trillion dollars of money we don't have to pay for social security for the baby boomer generation. This is a Ponzi scheme that is orders of magnitude worse that what Madoff did and it involves every American citizen

Thank you FDR
Posted by gtg066w at 12:25 PM : Mar 2, 2009

Maybe you should give credit where credit is due. If we did not have presidents dipping into the social security fund and collected the same percentage of FICA regardless of income, the fund we probably be alright.

The important thing is Bushs plan for investing social security into Wall Street never became reality.

[gtg066w]

It seems that in America only politicians can run ponzi schemes and get away with it. Look up what a Ponzi scheme is and you will find that it very accurately describes social security. The only difference between what Madoff did and what the federal government does everyday is that the people that invested with Madoff had a choice, I have never been able to choose to pay into social security. Estimates are that it will cost 50 Trillion dollars of money we don't have to pay for social security for the baby boomer generation. This is a Ponzi scheme that is orders of magnitude worse that what Madoff did and it involves every American citizen

Thank you FDR

[doubtingthomas10]

Asking the Media to investigate something big that might cause it to be sued or is contrary to the Owners Wishes as far as what is an appropriate topic or what's off-bounds is why many things are not challenged. The right answer is to put the facts out there and distribute them on the Internet and let the Public know and then see what happens.
This is the same thing that's going on right now with the Big War going on over whether there is ManMade Global Warming! Most of us who have looked into the issue know that there is no ManMade Global Warming. Now the Global Warming people are retreating and calling it Climate Change--more C--P. If the News media was really worth their "salt" they would be on top of all this activity rather than reporting it after the fact !

[Qui_Tam]

Yet another example of the greed and lust for personal gratification. And what do we do about it? NOTHING thats what.

America, the Contry of the people, for the people and by the people are acting like a humoungous heard of "sheeple"

Lee Iacocca had it right. "Where have all the leaders gone"

Why not indite the SEC , FEMA, and every other government agency that proports to be doing their job , but only if it suits their pocketbooks.

We had the cojones to impeach a President, did we not? So how can we NOT teach these lo life self deprecating people how to pay for their misgivings?

If we do not act, there will be another "Boston Tea Party" of sorts and woe be they who do not harken to the call for freedom, truth and the AMERICAN way.

"God Bless America"

[peopletech]

Just curious and would like an answer (if possible). What 'entity' monitors the rating agencies that gave 4 stars to these 'toxic' derivatives? And who monitors the big Accounting Firms? Both gave 'outstanding' approval for these 'toxic assets' and no one is doing anything about these 2 large groups. This is where accountability needs to be applied and if 'wrongs' were done on purpose, justice should be meted out and fines should be assessed.

Thanks for your time and look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Ira Reschman
Tampa, FL 33615

[grody1]

WHY didn't Markopolos go to the media when the SEC ignored his letters??? He could have saved at least some people from Madoff. Great, he figured it out and kept writing letters for how many years? Is there any reporter at your station or others, or other media who might have jumped all over that story? Kudos to Markopolos, but in my book not too many.

[LeonaCarlson]

http://www.c-span.org/Watch/watch.aspx?MediaId=HP-A-15082
This is a link to the official Cspan clip of Markopolos testimony to House Financial Services Hearing on Madoff Investigation Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Markopolos was concerned for his safety and had gone to WSJ reporter whose paper censored any work on this story.
I thought the WSJ was to help allow for a transparent market, apparently not, they cheated their readers .

[ghmom]

Loved the story - Harry is our Greek hero!! But PLEASE!!! check pronunciation - Greek names are tricky and Harry's last name should probably be pronounced mar-COP-o-lus not MARKO-po-lus. Thanks and keep up the good work!

[aenve]

Markopolos pointed out that hundreds of people were suspicious. If the signature line of the investor subscription docs had big lettering that said CAVEAT EMPTOR than this wouldn't even be a news story.. much more profound insight into the scheme is at 'bernie's blog...bernard-madoff-scam.blogspot.com

[tbuckl]

He did not do this alone. This guy had reported starting in 2000 but the powers to be ignored his reports guess we know who was in on the scam, the US Gov and Wallstreet. These are our leaders and this act is how they feel about us. They neverd cared and they never will. They just want money and they don't care whoi they take it from.

[John Sawyer]

Speaking of things to investigate, to make sure the "official" investigators do their job, here's some info on Madoff's sons that doesn't paint them in quite the innocent light that they and their parents have painted them--ignore the article itself, and read the comments appended to the article:

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/12/unlike_dad_madoffs_sons_used_o.php

[John Sawyer]

(continued from previous comment)

There's still a role for major media--even if Markopolos was uncomfortable or unwilling to report publicly, and widely, on his own, about what he'd discovered about Madoff, early on, it's likely he could have brought down Madoff if he'd at least reported his findings to the New York Times, The Washington Post, etc., even two years (2001) after he started his investigation. Markopolos could have set a personal deadline for the story to break after he'd reported it to "the proper media outlets"--if he didn't see one paper or other media outlet report the story as front page news, after several months of their own corroboration, then he could have gone public on his own, calling news conferences, etc. One problem with major media, particularly these days, with reduced numbers of real reporters, is that they need someone to give them the story first. If not enough people divulge what they know, the media won't hear about enough of these stories. Which is why we need far more independent investigative reporters. Years ago, it wasn't a complete secret that Madoff's supposed profits were out of line with everyone else's--astonishment and suspicion at his "profits" was reported in a couple magazines years ago, but nobody picked up the ball, in the public sphere, and ran with it, apparently because everyone expected "the proper authorities" to do something about him if there was a problem.

Widespread reporting by individuals, and by independent groups, also bypasses the people who have compromised and watered down the media and government, which doesn't have enough resources to stamp out everyone's efforts.

Most of the insider reporting on the financial industry, for instance by people like Michael Lewis, author of "Liar's Poker", a 1990 expose of Wall Street in the 1980s, tells the tale of nearly everyone on Wall Street being in on the financial stunts of their time, all watching each other's backs, or at the very least just grumbling and saying "too many people do it--what difference can I make?" Many people who read Lewis's book, took it as an instruction manual of how to do more of the same, instead of a call for correction. Other readers simply shook their head and said, "Those crazy Wall Street guys!" Others said, "I'm mad as hell!", but then dropped the ball too. Very little action was taken to remediate what he wrote about, and so here we are. Lewis has written a more recent article for Portfolio.com (http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom), detailing how a number of people on Wall Street knew the current financial collapse was going to happen, as long as several years in advance, when preventive action could have been taken to reduce the magnitude of the collapse. But again, the people with advance knowledge were poor reporters, if they reported at all, and the few who did report their findings, thought that discussing the situation amongst themselves, or with people in government, or writing another book, etc., should do the job. It didn't.

Even now, most people on Wall Street don't believe the answer is more regulations, or even enforcing the regulations that still exist. These people are welcome to go to Mars once we begin colonizing it, and run their own planet based on their ideas. In the meantime, if they don't like regulations, then they should have to put up with innumerable numbers of private investigations, and let the public decide whether what those investigations reveal, is palatable.

So again, what's needed is a lot more reporters--people who don't work for any news organization, so they're less likely to be bought off, laid off, reassigned, etc. A lot of these independent reporters may get a lot of things wrong, but that's probably better than inviting more massive crimes in the future--that's the tradeoff. Nothing is perfect. Without such massive investigation, even if we never see anything of the magnitude of the current financial collapse again, if we go back to complacency and reliance on industry, media, and the government to do what they're supposed to, there will continue to be a nonstop stream of lower-level, but still gross, economy-sapping financial crimes. I'd trade some jump-the-gun reporting for an end to, or even a major reduction of, all that.

This is not the same as calling for a nation of spies, which would be more than disgusting. This is calling a spade a spade, and growing some guts to bring crimes to light in a more timely fashion.