Playboy Pedro tries to do math; flunks

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5281414

Oh my.

The primitives are still talking about those big Democrat donors:

Blackhatjack (1000+ posts)     Wed Mar-18-09 02:03 PM
Original message
 
The Math on Madoff Does NOT WORK ....

So Madoff ran a $50bil 'ponzi scheme' for decades, and all the Madoff personal assets anyone can find do not add up to more than $200mil--most of which is in joint ownership with his wife.

With consistent returns of 12-17% paid to investors over the years, Bernie would have run out of 'principal investments' of earlier investors and the number of new investors injecting $$ needed to keep the scheme going would have been larger than those identified.

And now Madoff REFUSES the deal offered by the Govt to allow his wife to keep all joint assets in return for his full cooperation--most importantly where the $$ went. Hmmmm ....

Just like AIG acting as a 'passthrough' for billions paid to other entities which wished to remain anonymous, it appears that Madoff was a collector of funds which were used for some purpose other than investment, and those funds still exist today somewhere.

The question is WHERE? He did not buy stocks for last thirteen years.

I hestitate to even put this in print .... was the Madoff scheme part of a giant coordinated effort to manipulate governments and their massive govt contracts for the benefit of those who collected the funds for Madoff? Foreign and Domestic?

Unlike investment frauds where the $$ is lost on bad bets in the stock market, this $$ WAS NOT INVESTED... IT STILL EXISTS .... AND MADOFF IS NOT TALKING.

Yeah.  I wonder if George Soros is somewhere in this mix.

Atman  (1000+ posts)        Wed Mar-18-09 02:08 PM
Response to Original message
 
2. You're assuming that he ever had to pay out that 12-17%. He didn't.

As I hear it, very few people ever cashed out. Why would they? They were earning three times what everyone else was getting. When people did try to cash out, Madoff would go to work and talk them out of it. He only put the "earnings" on the "investors'" statements...he never actually paid any money to them.

Which raises the question: how much did he ACTUALLY take in, and how much of the "losses" being reported never actually existed in the first place? IOW, are they saying he "lost" $50 bil, that his scheme was showing a fake value of $50 bil -- fake in that it wasn't actually invested in anything. If that was the case, then his investors only "lost" what they put in, not what they didn't earn in dividends which didn't exist.

[delilahmused]

You know I keep trying to imagine what Pedro looks like. At first I imagined someone like Don Quixote, tilting at windmills and fighting imaginary foes as he does. But he can't be. Don Quixote was a doer, a creative thinker, he may have been a madman but he didn't wait for someone else to make his life better, to save his Dulcinea. Don Quixote knew who he was and "who I can be if I choose". Pedro is more like Sancho Panza. He's willing to be dragged around, beaten and humiliated even though it's apparent the foes aren't real. All because he wants some meaning, some brush with greatness in his life even if that greatness exists only in a world created by a madman. Of course, the real Sancho Panza had scruples, he went along to protect a man he genuinely learned to love and respect. Pedro simply doesn't have that kind of depth.

Cindie

[franksolich]

Playboy Pedro's a fascinating study, madam.

Playboy Pedro and franksolich have so many similarities it's eerie; similarities in family, background, socio-economic class, personalities, academic pursuits.  We're even near roughly the same age, and both suffered family tragedies while a teenager, which left deep marks on us.  We were both even born at the tail-end of families, the eternal "youngest brother" to whom the others pay no attention.

It's just really very odd.

I'm fascinated because I'm still trying to figure out why, with all of these similarities, Playboy Pedro's a loser and franksolich isn't.