At the exchange rates prevailing at the time, it seemed that Madoff had made off with £33 billion of private and professional investors’ money. It was a sum roughly equivalent to the total spent by the British government on defence in that year.
It was a Ponzi scheme. That means that the people who made off with the money were the early investors at the expense of the later ones. Madoff took a cut, sure, but the vast majority of the losses were paid out to investors.
Which is, of course, why the administrator went after those early investors and made them pay back their earnings….
Association with Madoff made hedge funds appear prone to the lowest forms of witless foolishness, instead of being staffed by brilliantly intuitive experts as had been widely assumed.
That’s good tho’.
Association with Madoff made hedge funds appear prone to the lowest forms of witless foolishness,
Not half as witlessly foolish as being associated with any of Tricky Ricky’s proposed “green” investment schemes.
“Association with Madoff made hedge funds appear prone to the lowest forms of witless foolishness,”
I recommend the Markopolos book, which goes into how the fund he was working for tried to figure out what Madoff was doing and realised that the whole thing was bent. The big giveaway was how consistent the returns were.
But a lot of funds knew he was bent, but thought he was front running.
How did Nicola Horlick survive putting money in his funds?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicola_Horlick
She doesn’t seem to be a great investor – I can give my money to criminals without paying someone else to do it for me.
Unlike Marc Rich, he didn’t get a Presidential pardon.
From Wikipedia:
Madoff targeted wealthy American Jewish communities, using his in-group status to obtain investments from Jewish individuals and institutions.
Oh.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Madoff
the administrator went after those early investors and made them pay back their earnings….
did he succeed though?
Last I heard – I think – he managed to claw back more than had originally been invested…..but then it was over decades, so inflation, etc.
@ BlokeonM4 – that was my big takeaway from Markopolos’ book – he was tasked with trying to reverse-engineer Madoff’s strategy, so that they could copy it. When he reported that it had to be a fraud, and laid out the various alternatives for just how it could be fraudulent, the reply was (essentially) – we don’t care that it’s a fraud, in fact, don’t tell us that, so that we can feign ignorance – but tell us how he’s doing it, so that we can figure how/whether we can get away with doing the same thing.
llater,
llamas
Association with Madoff made hedge funds appear prone to the lowest forms of witless foolishness,
No, it made them appear to so greedy for high returns that they ignored doing their due diligence. There were enough bright red flags in place that any half-wit would have run for hills. Fraudesters like Madoff target the greedy, not the stupid. Stupidity helps, of course, but is secondary to greed.
The lowest forms of witless foolishness were to be found within the SEC. The investigators they sent after Madoff didn’t understand the industry, the business, the accounting or the law. If memory serves, one of the lead investigators for the SEC was a recent hire with a background in family law.
Which is, of course, why the administrator went after those early investors and made them pay back their earnings….
So if I’m a legitimate early investor in what (to my genuine surprise) turns out to be a Ponzi scheme, they can come after me many years later for any profit I might have made? Or does this only apply to institutional investors, who might reasonably be expected* to have understood what was going on?
* but only by those who haven’t seen some of them in action
Yep – you’ve received stolen goods….
Thanks, Tim. I don’t dispute the correctness of your statement, but there’s a world of difference between buying something hooky from a bloke in the pub (those were the days!), and entering into a financial transaction that was regulated (I assume) by the appropriate authorities.
It is wonderful that the not-government Ponzi schemes get revealed for the frauds they are much more quickly than the government ones.
It’s rather a good advert for limited government and promoting personal responsibility for everyone of a level above doolally.
Does anyone remember Barlow Clowes? Blew up 1987 or so. They only invested in Gilts so the money was safe. Straightforward Ponzi scheme.