The fact that the Madoff swindle blew first may be a good thing for Jews in the long run, as most of the victims are conspicuously Jewish. It will help prevent a backlash against Jews when the other scandals come out. In fact I wonder if it was planned that way.
I've been referring to these people as hedge fund scum for quite a while. What's really funny is I don't have , or need, any evidence of that fact, it was obvious from their activities. They didn't pass my smell test. How did they pass the SEC and the banking auditors? All college boys. What we need are street wise thugs, that will kick the crap out of these hustlers if they even look at them crooked. Until that day, no relief 4 you.
I think these talks of redemptions are a bit ridiculous. The second tier hedge funds with bad performance have probably incurred the bulk of their redemptions, and the big names well I would say if you invest in those funds you are in it for the long term. Why would you bail after the biggest drawdown ever when historically big gaions follow big drawdowns . At least you wait for these gains in the following months. As for people who invested a large share of their assets with Madoff, that was a big mistake . Once again proof in the pudding that wealth and smarts don't necessarily go together. And what's with this charity working against the "dilution of Jewish identity through intermarriage" ?( RE : NYT article) ...
On a sidenote: I cannot help having the very definite impression that all this "hedging with derivatives" is one gigantic Ponzi scheme. All nice and well when there is low valatility but when eventually volatility goes up then this whole derivatives idea blows up. Who is there to pay out when multiple failures happen? (it works fine if there is a nice regular occurance but as we all know it is either one extreme or another) Maria
I agree bali_survivor, all this high finance is mostly a cover for generating wealth while producing NOTHING of value. A nice scam if you die before its uncovered.
If so then it would be one of the most irrational actions of all time, although I would love it to happen so I can get assets on the cheap. One guy out of thousands - with multiple red flags that have been warned about for years - turning out to be an oh-so-predictable fraud has no implications at all for other funds without those red flags. Fraud is always a risk whenever you give funds to someone, hence the need to do due diligence, and never allocate more than a certain percentage of your liquid funds to any given person or entity. Then again, given the gross stupidity of human beings, it would not surprise me if there was some thoughtless knee jerk reaction.
Would have to agree with the above. Worldcom and Enron produced massive outcries about accounting firms and fraudulent CEOs, but in hindsight didn't change the investment mentality of equity investors much over the long term.
I'm working on getting prominent Jewish Americans, folks whose community was damaged by a corrupt and captured SEC, to help me force immediate change. So far, I have had some success. Many prominent people read these threads; some PM's I have received have been very instrumental to investigator types. If anyone reading this can/will help, please PM me. I will warn you. You may be in direct dealings with enforcement types. If that bothers you, I ask you to get over it. It's time to clean up DC. But if you can help in our endeavour, now is the time. Again, I want prominent Jewish Americans, or their organizations, particularly charities, to help us lobby for immediate change of the regulatory system. The regulatory set of laws is fine, after all Madoff is being charged with a crime. If people want to be crooked then they will find a way no matter what the law. Typical- scream to clean up the place beacuse it's easier to blame 'the system' instead of accepting the reality that it's the people within 'the system'. In this case because he is a prominent Jew you seek to deflect people's eyes from the harsh reality. The path to socialism indeed, because the only way to ever prevent this is to not have free markets. I propose an alternative- better enforcement of existing laws, enforcement of harsh penalties on white collar crime, and let people understand that there is no golden cash cow that can deliver high long term returns with low risk.