JoeyDVivre Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > bchadwick Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > Hmmm… if I own a hedge fund, how do I lure > > suckers into a false rally so I can short more? > > > You don’t. hedge funds are not at all concerned > about people like louisville. It would change his > world view to sit in one for a day. It’s unfortunate that clowns like that are allowed to pollute what is otherwise an intellectual and mostly educated forum and people like VirginCFAH are kicked out.
weren’t investors asking for audited financial statements? and if so, are we going to see a mongous lawsuit against one of the big 4?
Not a big 4 firm. From a Bloomberg article: Among the red flags, Vos said: Madoff’s auditor, Friehling & Horowitz, operated from a 13-by-18-foot office in Rockland County, New York. Vos had an investigator stake out the office. A call to the…office of Friedling & Horowitz after business hours wasn’t returned.
johnn33fb Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Gotta love the > quote at the end though, “Ted Weisberg, president > of Seaport Securities, said that Madoff “was an > innovator” who, for years, offered investors a > guaranteed return and that he continued to attract > investors in that way.” that quote is priceless
This sounds kind of like Francisco d’Anconia from Atlas Shrugged. He purposefully made a ton of bad investments so that those who piggybacked him were taken down. The “Socialites” have taken it on the chin. http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article5333901.ece
Wall Street is one big Ponzi Scheme. Think about it. That’s what is going on right now. People are demanding the money owed to them, but the other people that owe other people don’t have the money because they were assuming monster returns with that money or were valuing their assets at 10-20x the actual value.
i suspected…back in 1991
mwvt9 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > This sounds kind of like Francisco d’Anconia from > Atlas Shrugged. He purposefully made a ton of bad > investments so that those who piggybacked him were > taken down. The “Socialites” have taken it on the > chin. > > http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/ind > ustry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article5333901.e > ce lol, the guy’s name on the bottom is Ira Roth.
well, at least Madoff will save Social Security. http://www.unconfirmedsources.com/index.php?itemid=3915
is dis real?
There’s no way Madoff’s strategy and “performance” should have fooled the fund of funds and other gatekeepers. Flat out negligence by anyone who didn’t catch on to this guy. There’s a clear value-add in the new environment we’ll be seeing for people who actually know how to ferret out and analyze information regarding hedge fund managers, their operations, and performance. Merely knowing how to steer clear of the Madoffs of the world is a clear value-add.
Sure because this time we will finally eliminate financial fraud from the world. Have you no sense of history or think that somehow this time it’s different? We will always have Madoffs and worse. Well-meaning people will get fooled by them and greedy people will almost always get fooled by them. People hear what they want to hear and believe what they want to believe and con-men will always take advantage of that.
I am with Joey on this one. This is just a manifestation of human nature and there is nothing new under the sun. There may be a new scheme, but it will come from the same root cause.
I am also with Joey. Some people will always feel like they are entitled to scam people, as if the ability also gives them the right. Others simply lack morality. It is nothing new and will always happen in the future. I do laugh my ass off at people calling all of Wall St. a “ponzi scheme”. Then why are you seeking your charter? Why are you on this message board? Why even voice your opinion? Nobody cares, since we’re all in the “ponzi scheme”.
I wouldn’t go as far as calling wall street a big ponzi scheme, but there are many similarities between bubbles and pyramid schemes.
TJR Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I wouldn’t go as far as calling wall street a big > ponzi scheme, but there are many similarities > between bubbles and pyramid schemes. Please. Just as the same as there are similarities between me looking at the moon and being an astronaut while Palin looks at russia and is somehow a foreign relations expert? There are similarities everywhere, but the degree that they are similar is what is important. If a similarity is unimportant, then it shouldn’t be considered.
From Madoff’s website: In an era of faceless organizations owned by other equally faceless organizations, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC harks back to an earlier era in the financial world: The owner’s name is on the door. Clients know that Bernard Madoff has a personal interest in maintaining the unblemished record of value, fair-dealing, and high ethical standards that has always been the firm’s hallmark.
^^^I guess a ponzi scheme could be defined as paying interest/gains to one investors with another’s principal. To me this sounds like what was happening in the Miami Beach housing market. For example: I buy a house for 500k from someone who paid 300k for it 2 years ago. I send that person 200k of my interest into her gains. Now she’s out with a 200k gain and now I’m looking to sell my asset for 700k to someone who wants to eventually sell it for 900k and on and on. What’s different about a ponzi scheme – and this is a huge difference – is that someone is coordinating these payments i.e. I payout the 40% return with another’s initial investment and so on. Like I said there are similarities which make me believe that markets tend to fall into this pattern when left untouched. This is why I can imagine people who don’t understand things like MBS, CDS, etc. and are totally pissed off about the money they lost might compare what happened over the last year with the criminal activity there’re more familiar with and has been around forever.
TJR Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > ^^^I guess a ponzi scheme could be defined as > paying interest/gains to one investors with > another’s principal. To me this sounds like what > was happening in the Miami Beach housing market. > For example: > > I buy a house for 500k from someone who paid 300k > for it 2 years ago. I send that person 200k of my > interest into her gains. Now she’s out with a > 200k gain and now I’m looking to sell my asset for > 700k to someone who wants to eventually sell it > for 900k and on and on. > > What’s different about a ponzi scheme – and this > is a huge difference – is that someone is > coordinating these payments i.e. I payout the 40% > return with another’s initial investment and so > on. Like I said there are similarities which make > me believe that markets tend to fall into this > pattern when left untouched. This is why I can > imagine people who don’t understand things like > MBS, CDS, etc. and are totally pissed off about > the money they lost might compare what happened > over the last year with the criminal activity > there’re more familiar with and has been around > forever. Your RE example is nowhere near a ponzi scheme, as: 1. It includes a real asset being exchanged, not just payment of money. 2. It includes a real, market driven, valuation of that asset, not an internal examination. 3. It doesn’t have any collusion of a single person or groups of people, to drive the value of the pyramid. If we use your very liberal definition of a ponzi scheme, then any asset valued higher than what it was purchased for, and ultimately valued higher than what you purchased and sold for. So more or less that’s any investment that includes ultimate appreciation. Since that includes everything except for depreciating assets, we’re all in one giant ponzi scheme. Doesn’t that just suck.