Monday, June 29, 2009

Bernie's Survivors and the SEC

As stated in my last post, I am a news junkie and sure enough today while watching the news (yup...I read plus I watch...and yeah I also listen to public radio news :)..its an addiction)...back to my point...while watching the news about Bernie Madoff's sentencing (he got 150 years in jail for running a $65b billion Ponzi scheme) they were interviewing the supposed 'Survivors' ('Victims' for the sane). Apparently these people are angry with the government and SEC. They are asking how come the SEC did not regulate Bernie Madoff's Hedge fund and are asking for answers.

So here is what I think about them...I do feel bad for them, at least those people who had no idea where their money was going, but for those who invested in Bernie's scheme expecting a 20% return, I have no sympathy.....its simple..no straightforward financial plan is going to give you a 20% return......they were greedy and they lost...and now they should just deal with it

As for government control, these are the same people who are the first ones to cry foul when the government is trying to regulate the financial industry....these fear mongers call it socialism and government interference. They don't want the government to regulate anything, they want the forces of capitalism to work their charm..everyone is happy and skipping around like a drunken monkey till the cash is rolling in....

But as soon as they fall victim to their own greed, they want the government to be responsible for the failures and hand out bail out money to them!

What is next? eat tons junk food and make BIG boo boo and when they are unable to clean themselves off very well...blame the government for not regulating their food and wiping their ass**s clean??....Idiots!

8 comments:

couchpapaya said...

yea ur right, even i was shocked that some of the returns offered were even as high as 45% one time!! 45%??! how come nobody thought abt 'if it's too good to be true, it probably is'. the thing i was shocked abt was the number of high profile ppl to fall into the net. so, basically, u can have all the money in the world and still be greedy. the junk food thing already happened didnt it except it wasnt the govt .... werent ppl suuing mcd's for selling the food that made them fat and this led to the new menu with all the salads and apples and stuff. ppl need someone to blame i guess....

Ava said...

Hmm so true. Good thing you are spending time profitably. Maybe you can turn into a famous journalist now hehe !

Smita said...

Yep u r right. Peopl who can still believe in such stupid things (after all the news coverage to such issues) deserve it. Though seeing the hard earned money going this way is too painful :-(

Angel's Flight said...

Ava,

now that will be nice too right ? but na...!!

Cheers

Smita,

Yup true...but its karma as far as i see it :)

Bhargavi said...

greed !!! ;-()..nobody hoped that ponzis would start defaulting .. teaser rates,negative amortization and greed ..will definately lead to things tanking .. apparently they have a new theory for this .. the more a country is in s stable phase (financially ), the more prolonged the ponzi phase is.. and yeah they shud be slapped on the bum ..

Mama - Mia said...

phew! you sure are upset! but yeah its true how so many people keep falling for get rich quick schemes!! it is indeed stupid!

btw, you have been tagged to do the "aweosme" tag! pls to do it! :)

cheers!

abha

Nautankey said...

One reason why I love RBI :-)...I feel they have to some extent got the right mix of when to interfere and when not to.

eye-in-sty-in said...

I believe they already do expct th govt. to give them 'safe' burgers and 'safe' fries :P
eat more junk and live longer :D

but in this case, the blame was justified. Madoff had a reserved seat at NYSE. He was rubbing shoulders with high-flying members of the society. Kind of like a wolf in sheep's clothings. Hence the big brouhaha over regulation of his schemes.

But then he could very well have been consulted on regulation of such schemes as he was a high society man with adequate knowledge on getting 45% returns on his schemes!