Earlier this week New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced charges against financier J. Ezra Merkin in connection with the Madoff case. Amir Efrati, a reporter with the Wall Street Journal, talks about the charges against Merkin, the latest in the Madoff case, what is known about the missing billions of dollars, and why so many charities lost so much money.
Comments [10]
Why doesn't the US government bail out the Madoff "victims" like it has the banks? Both made investments in bad schemes...
Come on, Madoff's auditing firm had to be in on it. It was a 3 people firm (one secretary and one 80 year-old man).
THE NY TIMES HAS NEVER DISCLOSED THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE MERKINS.
I have to say that Leonard's report sounds more true every day:
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/episodes/2009/04/01/segments/127585
This case with Merkin is symptomatic of the "Trust me" culture that was cynically fostered by Reagan and Bush and their ilk: that it is foolish to check up, to regulate.
The sure sign that someone is unworthy of trust is if they say, "Trust me."
Assuming Merkin was unaware of the Madoff scheme, it sounds like he was intimidated/ fooled into "trusting" folks like Merkin.
Apology!
Did you read Daphne Merkin, Merkin's sister's, op-ed piece in the NYT a couple of weeks ago, blaming the Madoff losses on the victims? Note that the Public Editor has acknowledged that that Daphne Merkin's disclosure that she had a brother who had invested w/ Madoff was not sufficient to avoid the conflict, but no NYT apologoy has been issued as of yet.
http://gawker.com/5182341/merkin-family-rules
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Anyone familiar with how high net worth individuals and institutions invest will "know" that Merkin defrauded his "investors." There is no way he told his clients that he was merely passing money through to Madoff.
Had he done that, some might have gone directly to Madoff (to avoid paying Merkin for nothing) or to other, more reliable money managers.
For the under 50 crowd... google "Merkin" for a good laugh.
Yes, Merkin was one for Madoff's scheme!
Is it really possible to be offended by Madoff anymore, given everything else that's going on in the markets? I mean, I feel terribly for everyone he robbed. But in the larger sense, Madoff is penny ante compared to the realization that is slowly sinking in about the financial markets - and our own complicity in it.
I've had SEVERAL shell-shocked, hard-core conservatives tell me recently that the stock market is just one giant Ponzi scheme. I'm worried one of them is going to start quoting Chomsky to me. There's only so much weirdness I can take.
When Elie Weisel said of Madoff, "we thought he was God," I realized that that is how we viewed Greenspan starting in the late 90's.
And Madoff's scam is nothing compared to what Geithner is currently engineering.
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