Madoff Made Off with $50 Billion

Bernard Madoff lost $50 Billion of clients money. They only found out when he confessed and had himself arrested.

His financial advisory business had been insolvent for years. He lost clients' money from charity foundations to retirement funds.

Disturbingly, it wasn't your typical blue collar, financially uneducated people that got screwed either. Famous people like Steven Spielberg and even massive European banks were hit.

Here's another thing. He didn't keep much of the money, he just lost it. He didn't even lose it all at once, he just lost some, covered it up, lost some more and continued like that until the downturn in the markets meant enough of his clients wanted money back that he couldn't pay.

If he had put away a few billion and then moved to Cuba or somewhere warm with no extradition treaty I can understand that. I wouldn't condone it of course, but I can at least understand.

No, I'm shocked that he'd lose a bunch of money, lose more and eventually put himself in the position of having to confess and go to jail. Why would you do that? What sense does that make? He confessed! He didn't even get found out be the SEC, he just went ahead and confessed to his top staff and his sons. He could have done this years ago without losing so much and probably faced lesser penalties.

I guess he started on a slippery slope, probably lost some money for clients a few years ago and didn't want them to know because that would hinder his ability to get new clients. He probably thought that by posting modest gains he'd be able to take any additional profits and make up the difference.

This of course constituted fraud off the bat and when it didn't work he had to continue the trend on a larger and larger scale until he had lost 50 BILLION DOLLARS.

At a time where people are already liquefying assets to protect them (pulling more money out of the economy for investment and other purposes, hurting it further) they are even more likely to freak out about their investments and pull out of funds and stocks. The more people that pull out, the more the prices drop and affect the value of the remaining owners.

It also means less cash is available to help out entrepreneurs like me. I'm already having investment issues because of this financial crisis and this asshole makes it even worse.

Our economy depends on small businesses and new businesses. This stimulates competition, makes things more efficient, brings more and better products to people at cheaper prices. And I believe in my company, I think that my website is truly a better option for people who want to travel, share their experiences and find and vet businesses.

I can't think of a solution. The death penalty is a pretty good one for this kind of scale but it never works with slippery slope type offenses. The hard and fast rule of an eye for an eye just doesn't apply.

A few years in jail doesn't seem fitting either though. Maybe he just won't survive jail, a death sentence handed out by the courts that doesn't have the death label on it.

One thing is for sure, expensive lawyers aren't going to help this time. This is no O.J. Simpson, this guy is going to jail and isn't going to see a lot of leniency. That's a small smile.