How Do You Pull Off a Ponzi Scheme? : Stupid Regulators | Securities and Exchange Commission Files

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Bernie Madoff's wild ride (Photo AP)

Don’t worry about government regulating health care, get them to regulate the financial markets:

Madoff said it was “amazing to me” that he didn’t get caught … because they specifically asked him, “Are these securities at DTC? (Depository Trust and Clearing Corp.)”  They further pressed, “What is your account number.” He replied, “646.” Madoff stated that it was “obvious they thought that something was amiss.” He went on to say that when they asked for the DTC account number, “I thought it was the end game, over. Monday morning they’ll call DTC and this will be over… and it never happened.”

Madoff stated that when … Enforcement did not follow up with DTC, “I was astonished.”

But the real question is, can the industry be regulated at all:

Madoff noted that the industry is growing incredibly complicated. He gave the example of when his firm put up a credit default swap and didn’t know how to do the books. Madoff said he didn’t know … He said he called Merrill Lynch, Lehman Bros, five firms total, all of which didn’t know. He said the NASD had no clue. Madoff stated that today, lots of trades are done off the books because people don’t know what to do with them.

Read the Horror – exhibit-0104

The End – How Wall Street Did Itself In | Portfolio.com

ded bull

I just reread this piece and decided to share it. If you were wondering how we got where we are today, this article combined with Matt Taibbi’s “Great Bubble Machine” (next article) will provide you with every thing you need to know.

To this day, the willingness of a Wall Street investment bank to pay me hundreds of thousands of dollars to dispense investment advice to grownups remains a mystery to me. I was 24 years old, with no experience of, or particular interest in, guessing which stocks and bonds would rise and which would fall. The essential function of Wall Street is to allocate capital—to decide who should get it and who should not. Believe me when I tell you that I hadn’t the first clue.

Read Article.

PASS THIS ARTICLE ON.

When, Oh When, Will HELP Be WANTED? | NYTimes.com

by Louis Uchitelle

Question: Where is the recovery coming from? This article adds some fresh perspective.

“But this time is clearly different. The pent-up demand is not present — not with 6.46 million jobs gone in just 18 months and hundreds of billions of dollars in wages extinguished. Credit is harder than ever to get for those who might want to spend again, and there are fewer and fewer spenders. People who do have jobs are saving (not spending) more of their incomes than they have in years, trying to replenish wealth lost in the stock market and in the declining value of their homes.”

Read Article: When, Oh When, Will HELP Be WANTED? – NYTimes.com.

Hernando de Soto – IT’S ABOUT PAPER NOT BUBBLES: Stopping the Meltdown

IT’S ABOUT PAPER NOT BUBBLES: Stopping the Meltdown

I recently received the following mail from Marshall Thurber, who studied and worked with R. Buckminster Fuller and W. Edwards Deming as well founded the Positive Deviant Network, about an article written by Hernando De Soto. Mr. De Soto, a Peruvian economist whose work focuses on the impact of the absence of a formal property ownership system in under-developed countries and how that lack of rights leads to endless poverty. Mr. De Soto has won numerous awards including the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty and the Bradley Prize for outstanding achievement by the Bradley Foundation.

In this article, with Marshall’s preface included, Mr. De Soto discusses the real causes and dangers of our current economic situation:

Continue reading “Hernando de Soto – IT’S ABOUT PAPER NOT BUBBLES: Stopping the Meltdown”