Yeah, and he’s so honorable.

Calling anyone disgraceful is a foul joke from a man who cost people their very life savings, retirement and security for the sake of his own wallet. He’s a thief without conscience. I don’t think he has any moral high ground here.

Excuse me if I can’t work up a tear for him.

He won’t get any tears from me but he’s right.

Even if he’s right, it’s pretty lame for him to call anyone disgraceful.

His words carry as much weight as the phony queens.

Maddoff and his whole story is just horrifying.

I have no doubt that both Maddoff’s family and the institutions that he utilized had their eyes closed and their hands over their ears.

Much of our society seems profoundly rudderless nowadays.

When you’re right, you’re right, Bernie. Now go back to your cell!

The media is disgraceful.

This is a good time to talk about disgraceful, and consider our current situation.

The way pyramid schemes operate is to keep taking in new investors’ cash to cover the outgoing payments. This is necessary because the PAYOUT is unsustainably high. Madoff couldn’t ACTUALLY generate that level of return, he could only pretend to and pay it to a few so long as he could keep the number of investor cash-outs to a minimum. So long as he could do that, the scheme worked, and those who DID cash out made a LOT of money.

Cut to the present. This is EXACTLY how Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid work. Not enough revenue is collected for the lot of them. This was not true of SS when the AVERAGE person died by retirement age. But as we live longer and don’t adjust the age of benefits, make no mistake, the combination of these three programs IS a pyramid scheme, and it takes up 2/3 of the federal budget.

So, what is one to do to dismantle a bomb like this? With a pyramid scheme THERE IS NO FAIR WAY to deal with it. Period. People are going to get back, at best, pennies on the dollar. The promises WILL NOT BE MET. So, the best anyone can do is try to:
1. minimize the pain and
2. see to it that those who didn’t invest in it (or in the case of mandatory programs like these, did not want any part of it) are not penalized.

Forget the practical for a second in the interest of what is MOST FAIR. Let’s say a chunk of people had been FORCED, AGAINST THEIR WILL, to hand their money over to be put in Madoff’s scheme. And the rest of the people who invested with Madoff were the ones who forced the unwilling. The FAIREST solution, with perfect information about who was who, would be to pay the UNWILLING participants in the swindle at 100% of the obligation. So, they would get paid first, and get paid ALL of their principal AND all of their interest, if there was enough money. And then the rest, who willingly invested AND forced the unwilling in also, should split up whatever is left, which will be damn little.

That’s the FAIREST thing to do, when people are forced against their will into schemes like this.

Now, consider the implications for SS, Medicare, and Medicaid. These systems CANNOT be sustained and CANNOT fulfill their primised obligations. The only way they can operate sustainably is to cut down the actual benefits they give out, by continually raising retirement age, decreasing benefits paid, and/or devaluing the currency. (Raising intake will further damage the economy’s death spiral.)

Think about the implications here. If you wanted to be AS FAIR AS POSSIBLE, if you could sort out who was who, you would pay full benefits to those who were compelled against their will into the system, and whatever scraps were left for those who forced them in.

We know that perfect information about who was for it and who was against it WON’T be available. But the very concept helps illustratte just how unfair this system is, and how ugly its collapse will be. This system HAS to stop right away. At the BARE MINIMUM, we need to keep EVERYONE who is under 18 now from ever getting rooked into it. No more new investors in the pyramid scheme. Cut it off. And then, start going about the process of sorting out how those who are in will divide up what is left. We won’t have much choice but to try to take care of those who are totally dependent on it in the present.

But it’s going to be horribly painful NO MATTER WHAT. The only way to minimize this pain is to end this cancer, now.

Cecelia said:
Maddoff and his whole story is just horrifying. I have no doubt that both Maddoff’s family and the institutions that he utilized had their eyes closed and their hands over their ears. Much of our society seems profoundly rudderless nowadays.

I agree, but compared to the wealth stolen from the American people and squandered in Washington to buy votes/power etc. what Maddoff swiped pales in comparison he’s in prison, but Barney Frank (Fannie and Freddie debacle) and Charlie Wrangles (tax cheat) still have a job and power?

The morality compass in America has been thrown overboard along with the charts and the amount of corruption in government is a reflection of the level of corruption in our society or else it wouldn’t be tolerated, heck fire they don’t even try to hide it anymore.

Just_MC had an extra dose of Plutocrat Kool- Aid today. Social Security, despite 30 years of theft by neo-con voodoo economists, is solvent. Raygun doubled the withholding tax from 6% to 12%. He also imposed a 1.5% tax on employees of the US Postal Service (800,000 people) that would pay for Medicare Coverage they were not covered for as federal employees. Since 1980, Rep. Govs. have routinely RAPED state employee pensions. They have refused to allocate their share, borrowed from the fund, or treated it like a personal slush fund. The Govs. are best compared to Jimmy Hoffa. They are looting pension funds just like he did. If anyone wants to see the similarities, the story is out there.

Glackin said:
Just_MC had an extra dose of Plutocrat Kool- Aid today. Social Security, despite 30 years of theft by neo-con voodoo economists, is solvent. Raygun doubled the withholding tax from 6% to 12%. He also imposed a 1.5% tax on employees of the US Postal Service (800,000 people) that would pay for Medicare Coverage they were not covered for as federal employees. Since 1980, Rep. Govs. have routinely RAPED state employee pensions. They have refused to allocate their share, borrowed from the fund, or treated it like a personal slush fund. The Govs. are best compared to Jimmy Hoffa. They are looting pension funds just like he did. If anyone wants to see the similarities, the story is out there.

Try reading again. I spoke of the insolvency of the SS, Medicare, and Medicaid all together. And specifically pointed out that SS was the part that was closest to being solvent, but that was now being overrun by demographics.

As far as raping goes, the benefits for public sector workers are RAPING the taxpayers, not the other way around. Unsustainable benefits SHOULD go bankrupt, breaking the contracts that were never realistic. ALL government employees should have ALL deferred benefits struck down. All pay should be in cash, in real time. Smart government employees should insist on this, as THEY are the ones who will be left with promises unkept.

If it sounds too good to be true, don’t buy it. Public sector pay is too good to be true.

And BTW Glackin, if you think one party or the other is “good” you are kidding yourselves. Both the establishment GOP and the Democrats are CROOKS. The only fix is to take our money back from them. Blaming Republican governors is childish partisanship.