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My whole family has been financially wiped out. We have been directly invested with him for thirty years and gradually increased our investments with him. We trusted him. Although our lives have been completely turned around, I still feel that GW Bush is more of a criminal when one stops to think of the millions of lives he has destroyed. Still the pain is dreadful.

For those who think this is "just about money" - they are VERY wrong.
This is about lives. What about the Bone Marrow Foundation that lost money? What about the lives that were lost as a result of the charity's inability to continue their work? What about the French investor who was so devastated by his client's losses that he was moved to commit suicide, in shame and humiliation?
This man SHOULD be equated with a murderer and should receive an appropriate punishment.
Please note that I did not lose money - but I believe that there is no punishment harsh enough or strong enough to suit this neinous crime.

The only fitting punishment for this one is to make him live out his years on the street, homeless, begging for scraps and pennies, forced to dress in an orange prison jump suit. Branded with the dollar sign, which will be known hereafter as the mark of Madoff.

As I understand it, he's likely to plead guilty. He'll live out his days in prison? He'll go where? To some Federal prison?

Well,there maybe some justice in this yet. One of the organisations that was being funded by a now bankrupt foundation that had money that was being held by Madoff was the Innocence Project. Maybe this one'll get shanked in the yard by someone who also like Madoff is a petty degenerate and liar but fancies himself innocent. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

# 76 above: Would his crimes be any LESS heinous if he had victimized only or mainly non-Jews? Does it matter the race or ethnicity or sexual orientation or age or wealth or sex or ANYTHING of the victims? Have 'progressives' lost all sense of the rightness or wrongness of an evil act regardless the victim of the act? Isn't it clear where that leads?

i think Madoff, his wife and his sons should by stripped of every material possession. Bernie and Ruth should be made to live on social security for the rest of their lives. In order to prevent them from going to the offshore funds - their passports should be forfeited!
At least then, they will have an appreciation of what they did.

Brian, The whole Jewish aspect of the Madoff drama is so worth exploring --- judging from the facts themselves and the comments today. I'm not Jewish but the aspect of this story that is beyond confounding to me, and deeply troubling, is how could he damage so many Jews? In addition to the many individuals who trusted him, it's the Jewish charities that are being brought down by this where the pain dominoes truly tumble --- is it even quantifiable how many lives he'll have affected, if not destroyed, in having bilked Hadassah and others of so much? Short way of saying: How can Jew do this to other Jews?

Mr. Maddoff should be compelled to move from
his Penthouse and be my neighbor in
the Nathan Straus Housing Projects.

There are 3 apartments empty on my floor,
as apartments are not being rented as they
are vacated.

Bernie, can have the pleasure of walking up
26 flights of stairs, because none of the
3 elevators are working.

Each flight of stairs is in adventure,
because you never know what person dressed
in a hospital gown and orange sneakers
he is going to bump into.

madoff guaranteed 12 or 15 percent annual return to investors, as I understand.

100% return as with real estate flippers -- that's greedy.

from what i have heard, madoff's investors were ignorant to money and too trusting. i sincerely don't see why they should be shamed or called "greedy." madoff is a greedy, shyster. to say that his victims are like madoff because they invested w him isn't true or nice (and i think we all know it sure ain't moral, no matter what your religion or believe system). these are old people that DON'T UNDERSTAND $ and didn't "ask Chuck."

The guy stole. A lot. Shouldn't he go to jail like anyone else? Rikers, Sing Sing, Fedsville or whatever. What is complicated about this? Why is he special?

I think if I stole a loaf of bread for my starving child and got caught there would be no real question...

Isn't he just a thief? An extraordinarily prolific, cruel and deceitful thief?

Jail with everybody else who breaks our laws and abuses the trust of the public would teach him and a lot of others like him a real lesson. That there is any way out sends a confusing and negative message to our society.

This is not complicated.

Two things to be said. To Madoff: You should be running now.

To the people of the City of New York: To the degree that you haven't made a practice of attacking this man in public, with baseball bats and knives, seeing that he lives in terror, then you are tainted by his crime. Get clean.

There's only one thing to say: where did you put all the money. Give me a list of assets: real estate, cars, art, jewelry. Check the records and find out every time he or his family or anyone associated with him left the country; find out where they went, bring them in, ask them where they put the money. You know he took most of it out of the country, and he probably has it hidden in secret private equity funds. Just like most of the criminals from Wall Street do. (Along with a lot of the politicians in Congress who have routinely been paid enormous bribes by the financial cartels while this looting of our country has been going on).

There's no point any longer in saying he's a bad guy. He's like a gang member, just one of hundreds or maybe even thousands. He's not unique, and people should stop attributing to him some satanic character. He just did, on a smaller scale, the same thing that the top people in every single financial institution in this country have been doing: stole all our money.

I want my money back. When will the prosecutors arrest everyone from Wall Street and go get my money? Madoff is small potatoes. People need to stop pretending he is "The" bad guy. He's like a low-level gang member, and did not steal anything close to what the big boys did. The big boys, as an aside, still have their mansions and season tickets, and nobody has touched so much as a hair on their heads.

FAF (5) What I said to my jewish friends who expressed something like that is Madoff is a sociopath before he's an American or a Jew. (I think he should have to walk down several thoroughfares in the Emperor's New Clothes while those he ripped off (and their loved ones) scorn, throw tomatoes, ridicule, etc. - don't wanna hurt him, want him to suffer the consequences - for the good of the country - to show that we punish white collar criminals!

jgarbuz from Queens/60

yea, right.

MADOFF'S PROGRESS

Going

Going

Gon-

if

FINALLY, some 'progressives' find the time to feel real sympathy for the victims of a criminal! Why is this financial victimizer so special as to warrant such attention, 'umbrage' & 'outrage'. What's so noteworthy or 'special' about Bernie's victims?
What about the thousands, millions of other people ripped off by various thieves & scamsters, all the identity thefts, bad checks & near infinite variety of financial crimes? What about the millions of victims of property theft or mindless vandalism, with or without an accompanied threat of violence - 'the mugging'?
What's so 'special' about the victim of a so-called 'hate crime'? Why do the 'progressives' get all in a dither if the guy who cracks u'r skull open is motivated by some politically incorrect loathing as opposed to just wanting your property or delighting in cracking heads? Does the cracked head feel differently if the perp who swung the bat hated than if he was perhaps indifferent? Should some victims of property theft or physical harm be worthy of more empathy than others & their victimizers more severely punished? Maybe some 'progressives' need to start worrying more about the victims of the many crimes still being committed in general (even with the last few year's reductions) rather than the problem of overflowing prisons? 'Progressives' need to spend more time regularly outraged & concerned about people who do bad & hurtful things to other people.

It is interesting to read the comments.
Sure he maybe a Sociopath, a cheat and any other adjectives they may want to apply to him.But at the end he was able to sustain the scheme cuz of the clients greed and desire to want more and more and never took the time to ask the question how come it was happening.
GREED blinded their ability to question.He did not cheat a Single Mother working two jobs.
Maybe after this THE RICH WILL BE LESS GREEDY and accept that they need to share more and not just WANT MORE.
There are more Madoff's out there who made off with RICH's wealth and they are embarrassed to talk bout it.

Dear Brian—

I love your show, and Bernie Madoff is a criminal who should be punished, but this piece on your show is shameful journalism for two reasons. Firstly, for inciting people into foolish hatred, comparing Madoff to Hitler and having total strangers say, based on photographs, that Madoff is a "smug, sick psychopath." This kind of shock jockey radio is puerile at best.

Secondly, and more importantly, this scapegoating of Madoff ignores the larger issue: the entire stock market is essentially a Ponzi scheme! People who own stock in GM or AIG, what do they actually "own"? The problem is much deeper than any one con man or any dozens of manipulative, greedy CEOs; the problem is the system.

Bernie, you were a crook.I guess that was your chosen profession.But the SEC's profession (job) was to stop you.They protected you instead .How did that work? The whistleblowers were ignored.It seems every regulatory organization in government somehow develops a cozy relationship with the people it regulates.We have to get to the particulars in this case.we have to prosecute the regulators. I don't want a plea deal.Modern life is to complicated. We need to empower whisleblowers and give them incentives. please Brian the real overarching story here is the SEC failure.And the story that is above that is society needs immediate feedback from whistleblowers to stop debacles like the Iraq invasion and our economic meltdown.

Seriously, he should have his day in court and aside from revealing all other involved, he should still be required to do some time in prison, he should also be forced to liquidate all of his and his wife's assets and and begin paying back those he defrauded (gullible as they were).

If he meets criteria for Psychopathic Personility or Soiciopathic Personality, imprisonment( which he rightfully deserves) will not I believe induces a sense of remorse or guilt and it won't be a deterrent for other people with those diagnoses. To compare him to Hitler and Stalin is disengenuous to say the least. Those men were responsible for KILLING and TOTURING Millions of people.Frankly, I don't think he deserves to be spoken to except by the judge when he sentences him

He should not go jail. He should be stripped of all assets and put back on the street to survive without money

Me, I'm having "schadenfreude" to see some of my fellow "big shot" Long Island Jews come down to earth. As the child of holocaust survivors, I felt it my duty to emigrate to Israel at age of 35 back in the early '80s, only to go through 10 years of hell, being cheated every day by Israeli scam artists and bureaucrats and just made it back with barely my bones intact. I came back to see while I had been going through hell, my big shot former buddies were all living in big houses, driving oversized SUV's and totally self-confident and self-absorbed thinking themselves practically masters of the universe. And they trusted a fellow Jew, which after ten years in Israel put a big smile on my face, because I knew what was coming. This whole financial bust came as no suprise to me whatsoever. I don't care about Elie Wiesel either, because he made a good living off the holocaust, and he's a fraud too. Bernie Madoff should be severely punished, but this whole thing should prove that Jews trust no man, especially one of their own, but only God

He should not go to jail. He and his family should be stripped of ALL assets and he should be set free to see how he can survive.

I have not lost any money with Madoff. Yet. I'd like to know how many regularly contributing organizations to WNYC are not giving this year because of the money they lost with Madoff. I'm sure there are some. Who will make up the difference? You and I will, so step up and give 'til it hurts. I feel better already.

I believe the only thing Bernie Madoff would understand is to have his wealth stripped from him and his family. We shouldn't even have to pay for his incarceration. Instead, we should give him a can and release him to the streets of NYC. Now, that's justice.

It shows how insideous greed and the spirit of capitalism has gotten that Madoff would be compared to Hitler, basically comparng the stealing of money to the killing of people...money equals life. pathetic.

I think he should be made to work in a series of grueling minimum wage jobs until he repays the debt, not just allowed to sit and read in a prison cell. (His victims are not going to be able to retire with room and board provided by the state.)

I lost money. And I think he ought to be put away as a deterrent. I am concerned that Madoff will be the whipping boy while a lot of others will walk free...

Why does Bernie get to stay in his penthouse apartment waiting for his day in court, while a low level street level drug dealer get locked up in the Tumbs for a few days for selling a $5 bag of pot?

There's no way he was the only one to be involved in his grand Ponzi scheme. He went on long vacations on his yacht. Who wrote the computer programs, sent out the checks etc. while he was enjoying life on the high seas?

How could he afford the bail money when he can't afford to pay his investors?? Isn't he broke, really? And didn't his wife accrue the 62 million dollars as a result of his shenanigans?

He should be in jail, like the common crook he is, and be made to clean toilets and scrub floors!!

Maddoff is a bad guy. What about the bankers and hedge fund managers who brought down the system??? Maybe badder guys.

how is someone who steals money a sociopath?
he's just a typical american, we all steal (refer to the tomato picker story from last week)

I think some victims were uninformed about investing but some were simply greedy.......please ask for people to call in who decided NOT to invest with Madoff and WHY!!

As we scale back the rockerfeller drug laws lets enact a version for finance.

Jail...solitary with a calculator with no batteries.

Well, I'm sorry, but I don't feel much compassion for anyone involved. What motivates people to invest money in the first place, for anything that they don't have any say or physical domain over? Just like with the popularization of the investing in the stock market in the 90s, greed is the real enemy here. This problem continues to degrade the real character of Americans and their addiction to money, wealth and status.

Keep Guantanimo open and send him there!

To reiterate my point above [11], it's not Bernie, he's just a small operator doing what the huge banks have done for years.

It's like prosecuting the grunts for abu-graib.

Look at the system, not the operators.

Since his crime is one of excess, an appropriate punishment would be to strip all him assets, attach a red letter to him, and let him live as a homeless person.

That's funny I would have put Mussolini in Walter O'Malley's place but would also definitely add Bernie Madoff now.

Everyone now calling him sociopath, psychopath etc....couldn't see that before huh?

I don't think there's any point in appealing to Madoff's conscience; I strongly suspect he's a sociopath, and has no conscience. Doesn't he look like he's enjoying the attention, with a smile playing on his lips, even while in a perp walk situation. Charming, wily, smart, selfish in the extreme and NO CONSCIENCE.

Let's not forget the people who have committed suicide over the life's savings they lost. I think he should be tried for manslaughter...

Should never put all your eggs in one basket! Someone falls with the basket crushes all the eggs and then what? Madoff that's what!

He is sick yes but shame on you gullible people trusted him for TWO big wrong reasons.

I'd like to see him freed, but with zero assets, and made to live amongst those who have nothing to appreciate the lives many lead in the US.

The fact he is living in his penthouse and transfering assets to his wife, while so many people - including your callers relatives - have lost everything is disgusting.

following up on mark's comments,
NO sympathy for the greedy unrealistic investors.

Why is no one speaking about the incompetence of the SEC, they should all be removed , but instead they continue on the federal payroll and will receive their federal pensions for being totally inept....

Madoff is likely to end up in a white colar prison setting (certainly not a cold dark cell) so imprisonment alone may not be a suffcient punishment. The real punishment would be to improverish he and his family (all of them) to the same degree that he impoversihed his poorest victim. The wife's claim to $62 million is obscene and should be laughed out of court.

The only punishment that makes sense to me would be if Madoff, his two sons, and his wife were executed by firing squad, on primetime tv.

The whole family lived for decades on the money they stole from people who trusted him. Shooting them all would be an excellent deterrent.

phil we get it.

And so I didn't finish my previous entry here...
I wish he and all who were involved in his scheme or knew about it and said nothing, I wish they all get horrible painful long illness and suffer a slow merciless death in a cold damp prison cell. He and his ilk should not be allowed in our society.
He IS smug.

I find it sad when reflecting of how much financial miss treatment of people not equally well off as the ones who could afford to be in the Madoff club happens and nobody reflects about it.

That said, I think he should have his day in court and if found guilty then loose all his assets, and somehow (don't ask me how) not be able to enjoy the wealth of his wife.

Give him a medal! Amazing how one man could dupe so many people to follow him with such blind trust.

-- why aren't the great liberal masses here in NYC metro area mad at the Barry Obama admin for looting everyone's savings, investment, retirement and education savings plans??? The toll so far is 100x what Bernie did. You folks are like sheep.

I dont know if I can feel sorry for this inner circle of people that invested in Bernie Madoff's scheme though word of mouth, and synagogue's that felt they were going to get a huge investment on their returns, did they know this scheme was going to hurt other people and ended up the ones being schemed.

probably agree w chris/11

see this:
http://www.milkeninstitute.com/

2 things...

1) People say they are surprised they have no compassion to him and want to see him suffer...compassion has nothing to do with it. You probably have compassion to the people that lost money (or everything). To want bad stuff to happen to a sociopath is not lack of compassion is it?

2) punishing him will do NOTHING to prevent it from happening again. The death penalty does nothing to deter future murders...but sure as heck deals with the crime and criminal at hand in an extreme way...throw the book at HIM and don't worry about everyone else charged witth this in the future.

I think Madoff should have to live out the rest of his days in a homeless shelter. See what it's really like to be poor in this country. Federal prison is WAY too cush...and costly for the tax payers. Make him beg.

Take everything from him but a ratty coat and let him beg for meals on the street.

My parents who are on a fixed income lost most of their life savings last year due to a person like Madoff. This person was a friend of the family. He later died in a motorcycle accident, and the FBI told my parents not to bother trying to get any money back because they can't figure out what he did with it all.

And what about the charitable institutions that were terribly affected by this man's dishonesty? His fraud has harmed so many poor and needy people as well.

FYI
no body should invest EVERYTHING with anybody.

guess these people didn't understand investing is like playing roulette.

Anyone who gave Madoff most or all of their assets is a fool period.

"Do we want him punished?" What kind of question is that? He should be punished, to the maximum. Not just for retribution, but because these kinds of white collar sociopathic crimes have serious social consequences...The tone of this discussion is too light...

This is why people are so jaded with our judicial/political system. Here is this crook living at home in his penthouse, while somebody who commits a minor infraction is jailed.

He should spend the rest of his life in a dark cell with a big guy named Bobba

Let's all grow up and face the facts that it is NOT terrible to feel like you want something horrible to happen to people like this very evil man. This is someone who would get away with the horrible things he did as long as he is allowed to get away with it and YOU and I would suffer by his actions. He is no different from any evil person in history to just did what they wanted as long as they got away with it.

First, I'd like for Bernie to appear in some old fashion, Puritan stocks near city hall, so we can all throw rotten fruit at him and the public can feel vindicated.

Then, I'd like to see him live out the rest of his life living on an allowance just below the poverty line and spending his days working in a homeless shelter. I think we should move him into an SRO in the Bronx instead of that penthouse.

Interesting that having a scapegoat like Madoff obsures the fact that these schemes have been not only made possible by the overall structure of our economy but even encouraged by it. It seems like this might just be another spectacle that prevents people from seeing how backwards things are and how grotesque the inequal distribution of wealth is. Are we to assume that now that Madoff has fallen that there are not a hundred others right now operating? My fear is that this is just symbolic and will not really lead to actual structural change. Who knows.

Elie Wiesel was quoted in the Times:
He would have a TV in Madoff's cell 24 hours a day with pictures and personal statements of all of his victims.

While it doesn't make me happy to see people lose money, at the same time I wonder if their own greed is also at fault. Why not put money in government-guaranteed banks or other guaranteed bonds? Instead, if people are trying to maximize their money, and invest with a private person, a risk of dishonesty or loss is always there. It is even more irresponsible for universities, charities, and foundations to have invested this way.

TAR AND FEATHER HIM!!!!!!! Then parade him through the streets!!!!

Forget Bernie (though the intro song was wonderful), the entire banking system over the past 20 years (since the repeal of Glass-Segall) has been a HUGE Ponzi scheme. Bernie should be let off from prison time but forced to go on a lecture tour to explain what regulations would prevent him and megabanks from creating such dishonest though legal schemes.

-Chris

american dream!

Madoff is part and parcel of the massive, lopsided, hubris fueled capitalist orgy that goes on and off in the US free markets. when Michael Douglas said "Greed is Good" in fiction, people not so secretly believed it ...

Hi all

I found that first degree grand larceny begins at $100,000.

The math led me to the following poem which is in the spirit of Haiku.

5 Million year Madoff Haiku

Five Hundred Thousand
First Degree Grand Larceny's
At 10 Years per count.

He will be older
than Lucy is now when he
finally gets out.

Does this make sense or
Am I being obsessive?
Both taxation
and sentencing
Seem unfairly regressive.

I have also posted this on my online poetry site account .

In my opinion, there is not much to say to Mr. Madoff, why? Because this person and his wife are completely disconnected from any reality, therefore, this attitude make them scruples, no consciences, with out-principals, no patriotism and with out LOVE for this wonderful country, a pair of narcissists. I just hope they will have a long life with no Alzheimer and incarcerated so they can learn to be connected to the real world.

I just can imagine, what Martha Stuart is thinking….

Nancy NYC

-- Bernie was merely a stalking horse for the great Marxist looting of American savings by the Barry (born in Kenya, raised in Indonesia as a citizen of that country, cabinet filled with tax cheats) Obama admin. which has already stolen 100x more money from the American people then Bernie did.

Sensitive subject I know. But do you have anything to say specifically to the Jewish People and how you have damaged them -- both to charities they ran and their reputation by religious association with you?

Bernie, don't worry! I know you are just the patsy!

What I can not believe is the fact that this evil is still living in the lap of luxury instead of being in jail, this is the the true example of the saying that (People with money get away with murder, avoid taxes and escape jail). We have two sets of laws for people with money and people without money.

(meant to write "openly" in last sentence above. Christmas bonuses.)

That December, 2008 day you were were sneaking $17.5 million to your wife's account to hide it from law enforcement -- Merrill Lynch's John Thain was opening giving his friends $4 BILLION.

You can't even steal right!