Sobre Maddoff

Isn't he the biggest financial scammer of all time? Well...he's the title-holder now. But he has a lot of competition close on his heels. Bernie's crime was taking money from people under false pretenses...and then being unable to give it back to them. How is that different from the financing activities of the US government?

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And when you balance Bernie's sins against his virtues, we're not sure the man doesn't come out at least as well as many of his accusers. While Bernie was pretending to make his investors rich, the SEC was pretending to protect them from Bernie. In fact, neither were really doing what they claimed. Which is to say, both are guilty of ordinary evil.

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But, what is the point of keeping Madoff in prison? He represents no threat. Rather than pay $30,000 per year to keep him locked up, we suggest that he be forced to do community service work. He should be pressed into service as the next head of the Federal Reserve after Ben Bernanke's term expires in December. With Madoff in the big office, there would be no longer any illusions about what sort of bank the Fed is running.

Bill Bonner, in Daily Reckoning