BS: Bail for Bernie???

Subject: BS: Bail for Bernie???
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 09:58 AM

So let me see if I have this right...

Bernie Madeoff pleads guilty to ripping his invetsors off to the tune of $60B and now his lawyers are arguing that he should be offered bail to get him out of jail until his sentencing???

What gives with that???

Subject: RE: BS: Bail for Bernie???
From: CarolC
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 10:04 AM

They're defense lawyers. That's their job.

Subject: RE: BS: Bail for Bernie???
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 10:37 AM

Who is payin' 'um??? And where did that money come from???

Subject: RE: BS: Bail for Bernie???
From: Maryrrf
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 10:43 AM

The money for the defense attorneys probably came from Bernie's wife, who made substantial withdrawals in the weeks before Bernie confessed his crimes. I can't believe nobody else in his family didn't realize something crooked was going on. They are all under investigation, as well they should be.

Subject: RE: BS: Bail for Bernie???
From: bobad
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 10:46 AM

His wife has a net worth of over 800 million dollars which she claims is independent from Bernie.

Subject: RE: BS: Bail for Bernie???
From: jacqui.c
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 10:56 AM

So, they were married for fifty years and she worked for his company. Where did she get all this 'independent' money from?

I hope that they don't agree to his being out on bail, but if he is, he should have to work as a Walmart greeter in the place of the 90 year old that he swindled.

Subject: RE: BS: Bail for Bernie???
From: gnu
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 11:00 AM

Why not set bail? Say, $60B.

And, I still say sommat smells fishy about the whole thing.... just where is the money? ALL THAT $$$?

Subject: RE: BS: Bail for Bernie???
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 11:22 AM

Good idea, nu-zer...

And, yeah, how can ya' hide $60B???

Subject: RE: BS: Bail for Bernie???
From: SINSULL
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 11:43 AM

The spotlight is turning on his employees who knowlingly conspired with Madoff to defraud investors. We'll see.

Meantime, it has come out that a number of these investors were the victims of another Ponzi scheme about ten years ago. You know, if it sounds too good to be true and you're told that this is a "secret" investment plan that has to remain a "secret", run!

Subject: RE: BS: Bail for Bernie???
From: Midchuck
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 12:40 PM

It's simple:

Imprisonment AFTER sentencing is for punishment.

Imprisonment BEFORE sentencing is only to keep the accused available for trial and sentencing, if he either can't make bail or no conceivable bail will be enough to assure he won't take off. Almost no non-lawyer understands this distinction - or they prefer to ignore it.

The real issue is why trial or guilty plea, and then sentencing if there's a conviction, have to take months and months, instead of a few weeks.

Peter

Subject: RE: BS: Bail for Bernie???
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 12:43 PM

Hmmmmmm, Sins... I was kinda thinkin' along them lines, myself... I mean, if yer gonna steal and hide $60B yer gonna need some help... Ya' thiink that Bernie is takin' a bullet fir alot of folks??? Maybe some well knowns??? Could make the Wall Strret bailout fiesko look like a parking violation before it's over...

Bring it on...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Bail for Bernie???
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 12:59 PM

Way I see it, Peter, is that it is a given that Bernie is going to at least get the 6 months jail time and given that he has allready admitted guilt that it just makes sense for him to be in jail... Plus, as you point out, any guy crafty enough to steal $60B is crafty enough to figure a way to escape house arrest...

But now I also like gnu's idea of setting the bail at $60B... Then if he splits, who cares... Everyone gets whole and Bernie would be broke...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Bail for Bernie???
From: Ebbie
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 02:47 PM

At the risk of stating the obvious, it seems to me that Madoff (What a name! Almost like coining it for the occasion.), knowing that he couldn't possibly avoid prison decided to see to it that only one of the group would go. His wife, his brother, his two sons, any co-conspirators - all of them will be free to enjoy the fruits of his and their labors. Small price to pay for lifelong affluence. If his plan works.

Subject: RE: BS: Bail for Bernie???
From: GUEST,Stephen
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 05:10 PM

Sorry I forgot to say my name 5.09pm

Subject: RE: BS: Bail for Bernie???
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 05:26 PM

The way I hear it, Stephen, Bernie was supposed to be investin' this dough in places where it would give him and his clients a return... Instead, he was takin' a million here and a milluion there off the top and using the money of subsequent investors to pay the earlier investers... At some point in time there aren't enough new investers to cover the older ones... That is the tipping point and that's why Bernie is in jail...

What did I miss here??? That's the way I understand what he did???

It was never going to work forever and I think that Bernie understood that but, hey, he got one heck of a good ride outta it while it lasted...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Bail for Bernie???
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 05:34 PM

No worse than the banks, true enough. No different, at the end of the day, except that Madoff's damage is relatively small scale compared with what they have done.   The scandal is that leading bankers aren't on trial as well.

But it's not true to say that white collar crime doesn't kill people. The global economic crisis these incompetent crooks have engineered is going to kill plenty of people.

Read what the head of the World Health Organisation has to say about this, as reported in today's Times Downturn could kill 400,000 children,:

Thousands of women and children are dying as a direct consequence of the current economic crisis which is already derailing efforts to improve maternal care and cut child death rates... an estimate of between 200,000 and 400,000 additional child deaths per year caused by the downturn was "entirely credible".

Subject: RE: BS: Bail for Bernie???
From: Peace
Date: 15 Mar 09 - 02:46 PM

Honest, officer, I have NO idea how that gun got in my holster . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Bail for Bernie???
From: gnu
Date: 15 Mar 09 - 02:56 PM

"Ya' thiink that Bernie is takin' a bullet fir alot of folks???"

Yup. The US Government. They need the money.

"... Madoff (What a name! Almost like coining it for the occasion.)..." Yup. Been done before. That there big company what provides the prison design-build-manage contracts and other "security services" to the government is Wackenhut.

Sound like paranoia? Well, paranoia seems to be the serving of the day and in recent years. Get yer duct tape out and buy some cans of fish. It ain't gonna stop soon.

Subject: RE: BS: Bail for Bernie???
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Mar 09 - 03:01 PM

'Wackenhut', of course, means something totally different in German than it might be construed in English.

Subject: RE: BS: Bail for Bernie???
From: gnu
Date: 15 Mar 09 - 03:09 PM

Oh? What?

Subject: RE: BS: Bail for Bernie???
From: gnu
Date: 15 Mar 09 - 03:46 PM

In any case, it still makes a good conspiracy theory.

Subject: RE: BS: Bail for Bernie???
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Mar 09 - 04:03 PM

Well, 'wackenhut' could be literally translated as 'hat that awakens you'. Kind of like one made of tinfoil perhaps. :_

Subject: RE: BS: Bail for Bernie???
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Mar 09 - 04:18 PM

If you just want to see how the cartoonists have been treating Bernie, try here.....there are dozens. (click 'next')

Subject: RE: BS: Bail for Bernie???
From: gnu
Date: 17 Mar 09 - 07:51 PM

I see that he was in court in a bullet proof vest. They say he will have to be separated from the main prison population because even THE CRIMINALS are pissed at him.

WTF?

Separated? I would think so! After all, how can he spend the rest of his life on a private lush island in paradise if he was in the general population? Oh, every now and then they will show him on the TV in his prison wallow, but that will be just a trip back to The States to visit old friends and relatives.

After all, if $65B disappeared... into thin air....?

Subject: RE: BS: Bail for Bernie???
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 17 Mar 09 - 10:33 PM

As I understand it, the $65 billion figure is a rough total of what Bernie told his clients their accounts were worth. Most of that figure represents the fictitious earnings that appeared on clients' account statements, not what they actually invested. The actual amount paid to Madoff by clients is more like $15 billion. The other $50 billion never existed except on pieces of paper that were nothing but lies.

Subject: RE: BS: Bail for Bernie???
From: gnu
Date: 18 Mar 09 - 06:20 AM

The thought plickens.

Subject: RE: BS: Bail for Bernie???
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 18 Mar 09 - 10:17 AM

Everyone keeps saying something to the effect: "Where's the $60B?"

Get this straight. There is no $60B.   The $60B is a total of what was fraudulently taken in over a period of many years. I forget how many, but let's say it was 20 years. That's an AVERAGE of $20B per year, and that's a lot of money.

But where did that year's (approximate average) $20B go? A lot of it went to existing investors, to maintain the fraud.

Madoff kept and spent a lot (unknown) of what was not fed back (also unknown) into the money pump.

At no point along the way, and today, there was/is no pot of $60B. There probably is what we would consider a large amount of money stashed here or there, including what his wife made off with, but not $60B--then, now, or ever.

There's been talk of backing up to try to reclaim money now-for-then from investors who were paid the phantom "earnings" along the way, and those (if any) who entirely withdrew what was shown as their investment stake at a particular time. Rotsa Ruck!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Bail for Bernie???
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 18 Mar 09 - 11:24 AM

I apologize. I just went back and read Bee-Dubya-Ell's post. As he points out, the $60B or $65B figure is a shadow, an illusion, a fraudulent bait-claim, and evidently "only" about $15B was put in over the--what?--15 years.

But the point remains, there was never a pot of "even" $15B sitting there; the money was going out in payments nearly as fast as it came in, and of course Madoff was consuming most of what was left.

My figures were wrong, but the burden of what I said in the previous post stands.

Dave Oesterreich