What the Dickens is going on? OR Things are more like they are today...
Sunday, 21. December 2008, 02:55:40
Last week the BBC finished it's dramatization of Dickens' Little Dorrit in fine style. As anyone who knows the story is already aware, the grand denouement comes when Mr. Murdle's bank collapses and pretty much everyone in London who has any money to spare promptly goes bankrupt, all except...
Well naturally there is more, but I won't spoil it all for you just in case you should want to read the book at some time and expand your mind. Suffice to say that Murdle was running a Ponzi scheme, paying out dividends to existing investors from money invested by newcomers. Naturally it all falls apart, no one has yet come up with a Ponzi / pyramid scheme that didn't.
Some of the clues that Dickens leaves in all his stories circulate around certain character's names. Some of them are - shall we say? - 'onomatopoeic'.
Fast forward to this week, and meet one Bernard L. Madoff, his surname is apparently pronounced 'made-off', which is precisely what it did with a great wodge of a lot of other people's money. You'd have thought the name would have been a bit of a clue. Another clue might have been that his hedge-fund operation was completely independent of his other business and was to all intents and purposes a one-man operation. Some reports have mentioned his son as a guarantor, and the size of the accounting firm that Okayed his books varies between one and three personnel, although all stories agree that Madoff was their only customer. It's undeniable that the firm ran a hedge fund which was not registered with the SEC until September 2006 and, according to reports, never inspected thereafter.
So why would lots of rich people who are now seriously less-than-rich trust this operation which, when analysed now, gives the distinct impression that it was not only a one-horse operation, but that it wasn't even being operated by the horse? Well maybe this had something to do with it. As a former chairman of the Nasdaq stock exchange Madoff was a big man on Wall Street, not convinced yet? Try this then. His "Thoughtful analysis of how modern regulatory systems make cheating virtually impossible" has been one of the most viewed clips on Youtube in the last few days. How can you not trust a guy who gives lectures on Youtube? He's one of Today's Generation, he's hip to the jive...
Sorry, I drifted away for a second there.
The point is this guy got away with swindling a lot of people for a very long time, and while we can chuckle with glee at some rich toffs suddenly finding themselves in the same position as the rest of us, it's also kinda sad to see some charities have been broken by his shenanigans, and it's those of us who support charities that will have to make up the shortfall.
Barclay's bank are saying that it may be two year's before banks get back to lending money "Normally". They're blaming the world financial crisis, I think they had money invested withMurdleMadoff.
The guy that made that gloomy prediction was Barclay's chief exec John Varley.
Now there's a Dickensian name if I ever heard one.
Well naturally there is more, but I won't spoil it all for you just in case you should want to read the book at some time and expand your mind. Suffice to say that Murdle was running a Ponzi scheme, paying out dividends to existing investors from money invested by newcomers. Naturally it all falls apart, no one has yet come up with a Ponzi / pyramid scheme that didn't.
Some of the clues that Dickens leaves in all his stories circulate around certain character's names. Some of them are - shall we say? - 'onomatopoeic'.
Fast forward to this week, and meet one Bernard L. Madoff, his surname is apparently pronounced 'made-off', which is precisely what it did with a great wodge of a lot of other people's money. You'd have thought the name would have been a bit of a clue. Another clue might have been that his hedge-fund operation was completely independent of his other business and was to all intents and purposes a one-man operation. Some reports have mentioned his son as a guarantor, and the size of the accounting firm that Okayed his books varies between one and three personnel, although all stories agree that Madoff was their only customer. It's undeniable that the firm ran a hedge fund which was not registered with the SEC until September 2006 and, according to reports, never inspected thereafter.
So why would lots of rich people who are now seriously less-than-rich trust this operation which, when analysed now, gives the distinct impression that it was not only a one-horse operation, but that it wasn't even being operated by the horse? Well maybe this had something to do with it. As a former chairman of the Nasdaq stock exchange Madoff was a big man on Wall Street, not convinced yet? Try this then. His "Thoughtful analysis of how modern regulatory systems make cheating virtually impossible" has been one of the most viewed clips on Youtube in the last few days. How can you not trust a guy who gives lectures on Youtube? He's one of Today's Generation, he's hip to the jive...
Sorry, I drifted away for a second there.
The point is this guy got away with swindling a lot of people for a very long time, and while we can chuckle with glee at some rich toffs suddenly finding themselves in the same position as the rest of us, it's also kinda sad to see some charities have been broken by his shenanigans, and it's those of us who support charities that will have to make up the shortfall.
Barclay's bank are saying that it may be two year's before banks get back to lending money "Normally". They're blaming the world financial crisis, I think they had money invested with
The guy that made that gloomy prediction was Barclay's chief exec John Varley.
Now there's a Dickensian name if I ever heard one.
WIDGETIZE