I think I just saw that his two-year-old was nearby when he killed himself...so, two kids. Sad.
Yeah, he must be guilty because he killed himself. Couldn't possibly be that he couldn't get hired anywhere and his name was ruined due to everyone's assumptions. Or, y'know, all those private reasons that drive those who don't make it onto the news to kill themselves.
But people like to pronounce judgment and cackle at tragedy. Makes the world a simpler place if you can make everything into good or evil, and dehumanize those you decide are the latter, evidence or no.
What a bunch of sick fucks in that family. The hubris & nemesis of my old literature classes is coming back to me. Where's my big bottle of TUMS when I need it?
Whatever, his kids will be fine. They'll be set up with massive trust funds to last them the rest of their lives, and now they don't have a greedy douchebag crook for a father anymore.
This is nothing like a public hanging. A public hanging is involuntary from the perspective of the decedent, i.e. an execution. This is a suicide which is volitional. Completely different.
I might be able to buy the concept that the family wasn't aware of what dear old dad was doing - how many of us knew everything about our father's business? - if both sons had not been traders in the company. I don't see how anyone could be a trader in that company and not smell something.
I think it's kind of telling that he hung himself with a dog leash while his 2-year-old kid was in the same apartment. Not that a 2-year-old would necessarily remember finding daddy swinging on a dog leash from a water pipe, but if you were going to off yourself, would you do it with your kid that near? I mean, he could have afforded a hotel room somewhere, right?
The Feds have been relentless about trying to get some of that money back from family members and about trying to prove the sons knew what was going on to some degree. There was a wonderful 60 Minutes on this a few months back. Mama has to clear any purchase over $100 with the Feds. Must be pretty stressful for them all, but they had been running $60-$80K monthly bills with Amex until fairly recently and buying homes in New York, Connecticut, and Nantucket (which Mark purchased for $6.5M and recently put up for sale for $7.5M):
Mark and his family were also frequent shoppers at their neighborhood Prada store where a pair of sneakers can be $600. A woman who works in that store said that he was a nice guy, but she could tell the investigation was wearing him down and taking a toll.
Maybe he couldn't face a life without such extravagance. Rich people can sometimes be that hollow especially if they've become so used to the life. And if that's true, his children are probably better off without him. All I can think about at this point with regard to this are his two kids (the Feds are after their money, too) and all those ripped-off charities and people who were swindled out of their life savings and now have nothing. Some would say that's almost worse that death.
Bernie Maddoff was only a side-show of the financial meltdown. His was a simple enough story for people to understand and the story had an identifiable figure to blame. AIG is the real story.
The remarkable fact about the whole thing though, has been the complete lack of shame. AIG analysts still collect bonuses to do the same work. Bernie Madoff probably has stuff hidden all over.
So here at last is one person, a minor figure in a minor side-show, who was capable of shame.
I'm trying to remember which novel (Richard Wright?) has a child ask the mother, after a neighbor commits suicide, if there aren't some good white people in the world. The mother responds "the good ones are dead."
Public hangings were awesome parties. The Triple Tree at Tyburn often had attendance in the tens of thousands. Grandstands were erected for especially good ones, like when they would simultaneously hang 20 people. The condemned were expected to, and often did, treat it like an excellent party themselves. They would toss baubles and ham it up to an adoring crowd as they were dragged on a sledge to their death. There was a pub where all the condemned would take their final drink.
So, this is absolutely nothing like a public hanging. Perhaps this is more like seppuku?
I really don't think this is that newsworthy. But then Sarah Palin takes a shit and everyone goes crazy so this story probably counts as high journalism.
@26: I'm not referring to the attitude, I'm referring to your word choice. The phrase "and nothing of value was lost" is generally associated with this image macro.
Apropos of nothing, just saw the Tourist. Johnny Depp looked pasty, but charming as always, Angelina no longer has breasts, and her English accent is Lara Croftesque. The camera spends a lot of time on her lips, and Venice is pretty. That is all.
There is Going Galt, and there is Going Galt. Mark Madoff has shown how it's done, and I for one encourage our moneyed robber-baron class to follow his lead!
@37 GO FUCK YOUR SELF ! O I see your are all ready ! well throw an extra one in for me then. Personally I think thieving jew bastard was an apt description of the theft by this thieving jewish family of criminal bastards who robbed thousands of people of billions of dollars.
Wow. The level of venom on this comment thread is pretty grotesque. I have no sympathy for Bernie Madoff or his wife (who fully seems to have been a co-conspirator), but having worked at a financial firm and also having a morally bankrupt father, I can see how this guy could have been ignorant of everything that was going on.
The sons worked in the legitimate arm of the business. Different divisions in financial companies these days are kept largely separate in the interests of "fair dealing." Even if they worked in the same building for the same company, it would have been easy for Madoff to keep his sons in the dark (not so much his brother and niece, but who knows?). If anything seemed strange, a simple reassurance from Dad would likely have been enough - after all, who can you trust better than your parents? Mark Madoff had a pretty demanding job, so he definitely wasn't going to be doing due diligence on his own father's business, when it was ostensibly toeing the line. Everyone around him was talking about how wonderful his father was - who was he to believe otherwise? Everything he had came from his dad.
Then he found out everything in his golden life was an illusion. His father and mother had been duping him his ENTIRE LIFE. More than 40 years of living and everything was undermined, nothing was real. A career and reputation destroyed, a family torn to pieces, public humiliation, legal troubles, and probably a lifetime of little niggling doubts that he never bothered to think about at the time, because the idea that his entire life was based on a massive fraud seemed an impossibility.
I believe if he was guilty of anything it was perhaps too much complacency. But that's not a crime. This was not justice - it was a tragedy.
You guys can go ahead and tear apart a dead man, but I'll save my venom for Bernie and Ruth Madoff. Well, Mr. and Mrs. Madoff, your son was just driven to his death by your grand schemes. Does that posh lifestyle still seem like it was worth it?
@46: Marks like you are why Ponzi schemes thrive, even today. God, your credulousness is sickening. This is how people get away with it all, because you appeal to the "innate good" in sociopaths.
In one of the lawsuits filed last week in Great Britain by bankruptcy trustee Irving Picard, Picard claimed that the Madoff brothers orchestrated a series of phony transactions between New York and London that funneled millions to Madoff family accounts through a series of dummy corporations. The accounts were intended to remain secret.
I'm probably wrong about this, and I know I don't have good facts to go on, but am I the only one who suspects that this might not have been a suicide but a murder dressed up as a suicide? I think there are enough pissed-off people, some still with money and without scruples, that could conceivably order a "retribution-hit" on the Son, as vengeance on the Dad!
And yeah, there's a real "snap-judgement" clique nestled in this comment thread. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go prep my boudoir for a night of awe-inspiring sex...
@anjinsan: "And yeah, there's a real "snap-judgement" clique nestled in this comment thread. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go prep my boudoir for a night of awe-inspiring sex... "
Slag off, there's no requirement for impartiality in the court of public opinion. He was participating in a company with no actual business, and was directly and knowingly involved in the scheme. I can judge the dead just fine.
Is this article the modern-day equivalent of slander?
Yeah, he must be guilty because he killed himself. Couldn't possibly be that he couldn't get hired anywhere and his name was ruined due to everyone's assumptions. Or, y'know, all those private reasons that drive those who don't make it onto the news to kill themselves.
But people like to pronounce judgment and cackle at tragedy. Makes the world a simpler place if you can make everything into good or evil, and dehumanize those you decide are the latter, evidence or no.
Real nice of him. Hey honey and kids, Merry Christmas! I'm dead! Enjoy this memory every holiday season for the rest of your lives!
The modern equivalent of a public hanging is still a public hanging.
He had white horses...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=129uSUEN-…
I think it's kind of telling that he hung himself with a dog leash while his 2-year-old kid was in the same apartment. Not that a 2-year-old would necessarily remember finding daddy swinging on a dog leash from a water pipe, but if you were going to off yourself, would you do it with your kid that near? I mean, he could have afforded a hotel room somewhere, right?
The Feds have been relentless about trying to get some of that money back from family members and about trying to prove the sons knew what was going on to some degree. There was a wonderful 60 Minutes on this a few months back. Mama has to clear any purchase over $100 with the Feds. Must be pretty stressful for them all, but they had been running $60-$80K monthly bills with Amex until fairly recently and buying homes in New York, Connecticut, and Nantucket (which Mark purchased for $6.5M and recently put up for sale for $7.5M):
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/26…
Mark and his family were also frequent shoppers at their neighborhood Prada store where a pair of sneakers can be $600. A woman who works in that store said that he was a nice guy, but she could tell the investigation was wearing him down and taking a toll.
Maybe he couldn't face a life without such extravagance. Rich people can sometimes be that hollow especially if they've become so used to the life. And if that's true, his children are probably better off without him. All I can think about at this point with regard to this are his two kids (the Feds are after their money, too) and all those ripped-off charities and people who were swindled out of their life savings and now have nothing. Some would say that's almost worse that death.
The remarkable fact about the whole thing though, has been the complete lack of shame. AIG analysts still collect bonuses to do the same work. Bernie Madoff probably has stuff hidden all over.
So here at last is one person, a minor figure in a minor side-show, who was capable of shame.
I'm trying to remember which novel (Richard Wright?) has a child ask the mother, after a neighbor commits suicide, if there aren't some good white people in the world. The mother responds "the good ones are dead."
Word was that he wasn't in on the Ponzi side of things. I dunno, but I'm feeling sorry for his family.
So, this is absolutely nothing like a public hanging. Perhaps this is more like seppuku?
Also,
The Game.
Apropos of nothing, just saw the Tourist. Johnny Depp looked pasty, but charming as always, Angelina no longer has breasts, and her English accent is Lara Croftesque. The camera spends a lot of time on her lips, and Venice is pretty. That is all.
bernie should have known that evolution favors "moral" behavior.
@31: Oldfag detected.
@34: Troll detected. Jew-jitsu activated.
The human condition is not so mysterious.
We don't live in feudal japan.
That dude was suicided.
I'll bet you he was coerced and not even threatened.
I'd applaud but I know better.
The sons worked in the legitimate arm of the business. Different divisions in financial companies these days are kept largely separate in the interests of "fair dealing." Even if they worked in the same building for the same company, it would have been easy for Madoff to keep his sons in the dark (not so much his brother and niece, but who knows?). If anything seemed strange, a simple reassurance from Dad would likely have been enough - after all, who can you trust better than your parents? Mark Madoff had a pretty demanding job, so he definitely wasn't going to be doing due diligence on his own father's business, when it was ostensibly toeing the line. Everyone around him was talking about how wonderful his father was - who was he to believe otherwise? Everything he had came from his dad.
Then he found out everything in his golden life was an illusion. His father and mother had been duping him his ENTIRE LIFE. More than 40 years of living and everything was undermined, nothing was real. A career and reputation destroyed, a family torn to pieces, public humiliation, legal troubles, and probably a lifetime of little niggling doubts that he never bothered to think about at the time, because the idea that his entire life was based on a massive fraud seemed an impossibility.
I believe if he was guilty of anything it was perhaps too much complacency. But that's not a crime. This was not justice - it was a tragedy.
You guys can go ahead and tear apart a dead man, but I'll save my venom for Bernie and Ruth Madoff. Well, Mr. and Mrs. Madoff, your son was just driven to his death by your grand schemes. Does that posh lifestyle still seem like it was worth it?
You are so goddamned gullible.
"The sons worked in the legitimate arm of the business."
The company never bought a single stock, how is that possible? Legitimate arm my ass.
In one of the lawsuits filed last week in Great Britain by bankruptcy trustee Irving Picard, Picard claimed that the Madoff brothers orchestrated a series of phony transactions between New York and London that funneled millions to Madoff family accounts through a series of dummy corporations. The accounts were intended to remain secret.
And yeah, there's a real "snap-judgement" clique nestled in this comment thread. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go prep my boudoir for a night of awe-inspiring sex...
Slag off, there's no requirement for impartiality in the court of public opinion. He was participating in a company with no actual business, and was directly and knowingly involved in the scheme. I can judge the dead just fine.