No people like him don't have a conscience. He would not think "long and hard" or feel any remorse for what he did. You know what was his thoughts after he got into jail? He hated Harry Markopolos, the whistle-blower who exposed him. He was not sorry for what he did; he was just pissed that he got caught.
His victims got a better than average outcome not because of him; it was because of a kick a$$ trustee Irving Picard who went to extraordinary lengths to try to recover the funds for the victims. If not for this hero of Mr. Picard, people will be wiped out. So the fact that people were able to be made whole (and many died without seeing their life savings ever recovered because they were retirees) does not exonerate Madoff one bit nor does it lessen the harm that he caused to innocent people.
%% I dont blame him for hiring his bro as CPA/bookeeper; even though that's a red flag/danger signal for most.
And considering his bro's daughter, his niece is a high-level SEC officer and is married to one that was assigned to investigate Madoff. And when investigating Madoff, they even talked to the niece about their investigation. Talking about conflict of interest.
Many of Madoff's victims got repaid up to $500,000 by the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC). This applies only to the original investment, not any "profits" created by Madoff. If the victims withdrew funds higher than their original investment, then they were subject to clawbacks. Other Madoff victims bought AIG's Fraud SafeGuard insurance which insured up to $200,000 of the original investment. I believe only the direct Madoff investors were repaid their original investment by SIPC. That may have changed but you would have to verify that. The victims who gave money to the feeder funds such as Fairfield Greenwich Group were not repaid by SIPC. Again, that may have changed but you would need to verify. At least 4 people committed suicide when they learned about the Madoff investment scam. There are probably others but we haven't heard of them because they are not rich or famous.
1. Yeah, and the kid with the wrong Robin Hood margin call did the same. That is only money, not to mention not putting all your eggs into one basket. On the other hand Elie Wiesel who went through Auswitz said, "we have been through much worse." 2. Two of those suicides were part of the scam. One was Mark, Madoff's son, who should have known better, specially after the expose by Markopolos. The other guy was a French dude who was repeatedly warned by Markopolos. "Harry Markopolos said he had met with de La Villehuchet several years before, and had warned him that Madoff might be breaking the law" Bottom line: Don't kill yourself over money. Money can be made again or reclaimed. The facts: "Ignoring opportunity costs and taxes paid on fictitious profits, half of Madoff's direct investors lost no money, with Madoff's repeated (and repeatedly ignored) whistleblower, Harry Markopolos, estimating that at least $35 billion of the money Madoff claimed to have stolen never really existed, but was simply fictional profits he reported to his clients." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madoff_investment_scandal#Recovery_of_funds
%% They say time passes faster when you get his age; but with his lawyers most likely egging him with false hope on to rip him of in fees, probably a horrible way to go/no parole\nothing but gov ''health'' care. I mostly got good fills on NasdaQ,even when he was there, so cant really predict what a crook will do also................................................................................................
1. The 20-year-old Robinhood trader, University of Nebraska student Alexander Kearns, stepped in front of a train because he saw a negative balance of $730,000 on his Robinhood account. He was using Robinhood to trade "complex options instruments." Alexander panicked because he was young and didn't understand what he was looking at. When the article says "complex options instruments", I assume they meant either a bull or bear call or put spread, short or long straddle, strangle, Butterfly or Iron Condor. I believe what happened was, because Robinhood Markets is a newer broker, IMO their phone app did not show the correct balance because it only showed one side of the options strategy, the negative part. IMO the phone app did not show the complete and correct total for the whole strategy. It was not a margin call. If Alexander had contacted anyone knowledgeable in a forum such as this one or called Robinhood, they would have told him what was happening. In the article under "Confusion over a negative balance": Alexander wrote in a note "The puts I bought/sold should have cancelled out, too..." Twitter users who saw Brewster's [relative of Alexander] stream of tweets alerted him that options traders on Robinhood sometimes see a negative cash balance until the other half of their trades are executed. In other words, Alexander did not actually owe $730,000. But he was apparently led to believe he did. "My sense is that it was all over nothing. It was a user interface issue," said Brewster [relative of Alexander]. A source familiar with Robinhood's procedures stated that during options trading it is possible that cash and buying power will display as negative until the other side of the trade is processed. That does not mean, however, that this is a negative balance due or debt. It's surprising that Alexander Kearns committed suicide because he was tech savvy: Brewster [relative of Alexander] recalled that Alexander loved technology and was super interested in computers, even at a young age. He said Kearns' favorite company was Microsoft. IMO it's possible there were other factors which led to Alexander's act. 2. Yes, I heard about René-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, how he met with Harry Markopolos, and how he ended it.
I can't believe people still compare Important corrections that need to be made: None of the four suicides caused by Madoff's fraud was over money. 1. René-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet did NOT kill himself over money. He died for honour because he gave his word to all of his investors promising them the superior returns that they would enjoy from Madoff's fictitious funds. People gave him money on the basis of that promise backed by his personal honour as well as the honour of his family established over hundreds of years. René-Thierry's family is one of the oldest nobility in France who lent money to Louis IV; his family's name is inscribed on the back of the arch of Arc de Triomphe. There are still people in this world who still believes in honour and kept promises and when they believe when those promises are broken and cannot be made whole they still believe in upholding the honour by their own precious life. To me, he died a hero's death, although a bit excessive imo, but nevertheless honourable. 2. Madoff's son also didn't die over money; he died for redeeming the sin of his father, somebody who really doesn't deserve any of it imo. Just because Madoff is an a$$hole who has no integrity or conscience doesn't mean his son doesn't. And in this world, it's the good people who suffer while the a-holes go scott-free. The world is full of ironies, tragic ones especially. 3. William Foxton, a highly decorated British soldier killed himself because he felt he let his family down having lost all of his family's fortune that was hard-earned money that his family members had worked their whole life for, something that he could never repay except with his own life that he hoped would ease some of the resentment and even hatred towards him. 4. Last but not least, Charles Murphy who chose to leap out of a 24th floor hotel window instead of dying in his own home so his future widow would be able to sell their family home which he transferred to his wife's name just days before his suicide at good enough of a price for her and their children could be well taken care of for the rest of their lives. He died so he could provide for his family, again not for money, but the responsibility that he felt towards his family that he felt he didn't fulfill adequately while alive so maybe he could fulfill them better by being dead. For all the deadbeat dads who would go to the world's end to try to escape from paying their fair share of child support, here is somebody who died to take care of his family. Really puts things in perspective, doesn't it? Again it's the good people who perishes in this world. I know we traders are all in it for the money and really doesn't give a s*** about anything besides money but sometimes it's not all about the money. There is something bigger than that that is both personal and complicated and full of emotion just like everything else.