Pretty well written story - I was fairly captivated, and I don't even care about him all that much.
I'm curious whether this prison system does in fact have better rehabilitation success than regular prison systems. It does sound like the inmates are more well adjusted, and although the article initially describes them as "soft", mob hit men as well as some gruesome murderers and child molesters definitely make that list.
Agreed. I don't think he even had a twinge when he went over the line - making up trades to cover a loss. Didn't even perceive it as a decision to be made, it just needed to be done.
There's a kind of kudos in having been able to fool so many apparently savvy investors for so long, I guess. Most people of this type - which includes some very successful non-criminals too - seem to have the characteristic of being completely unconcerned about the victims (or "customers"), instead just seeing what they were doing as a demand and supply issue.
Well ... the really savvy ones knew he was running a scam, they just thought he was using profits from front running (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_running) in his other business to even out the returns of the fund. They didn't think he was so much a crook that it was instead all a Ponzi scheme.
> Well ... the really savvy ones knew he was running a scam,
When you knowingly invest in a Ponzi scheme (or something like it) you are enabling it and you should be considered an accomplice.
It would be hard do prove in a criminal case, but there should be regulations to prevent the investors who should know better and who got handsome returns for enabling him to enable other similar schemes in the future.
Then you'll be happy to know that those who received (bogus) returns from the fund are subject to clawbacks, since the money they received wasn't really from a return on their investment but was stolen from other investors.
You ... scheme would be hard to justify given that the SEC received so many detailed reports that Madoff was doing something impossible and just blew them off.
Maybe, but I can't think of any way to make that work.
A lot of politicians have been and will be losing their seats for following the lead of Barney "let's roll the dice" Frank. He's in a well gerrymandered seat (in the state that invented the process!) so he's likely to stay indefinitely, but who knows if the economy gets bad enough (e.g. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1410594). One big factor here is that the whole situation has been thrown in flux with Ted Kennedy's death. He was the big "bring home the bacon" guy, there's no one last time I checked who's stepping into that role. E.g. Kerry doesn't have what it takes.
Another approach, which won't ever happen because of the social dynamics, is for his fellow legislators to punish his district. The theory being "we can't make you elect someone else, but we can make you wish that you had". However, legislators don't work that way.
It's from a magazine. You know...those things that existed before blogs, where the author did real research, actually interviewed people, checked facts, ensured accuracy, etc.
I'd much rather read 6 pages of well-written, fact checked magazine than some shitty blog entry that someone spent 5 minutes on just to drive up traffic numbers.
I'm curious whether this prison system does in fact have better rehabilitation success than regular prison systems. It does sound like the inmates are more well adjusted, and although the article initially describes them as "soft", mob hit men as well as some gruesome murderers and child molesters definitely make that list.