The Madoff Question

Bernie Madoff received sentencing today: 150 years in prison for eleven counts of fraud (although hundreds of claims have been filed) and having been said to have stolen $65 billion in investments.

It's not that I don't feel sympathy for the people who were ripped off. We have investments of our own that are supposed to provide for our retirement and to help us get a home when we're ready. If somebody ripped us off, I'd be pissed, too. But there is something a little ... uneven in the punishment.

To start with, there is the possibility that the "loses" were miscalculated. At least per the defense attorney, who might be expected to say such things. But given that it is true Madoff grossly overstated the bottom line, how is it fair that some of the victims are demanding compensation at levels clearly based on fraud? They want the imaginary money -- not the actual money. And some very clearly believe they're entitled to it. Some rejected getting their principle back or some return of their cash in favor of holding out in hopes of a bigger chunk of Madoff's own personal ill gotten gains. As though even that conspicuous display of wealth would be enough to go around somehow.

How can a man serve 150 years? He can't. Those sentences are only given out in my opinion because they sound pejorative. They make us feel like a really harsh punishment has been handed down. Why not just ask for "life in prison"? I know that Madoff is sentenced per count of fraud, etc., so maybe there is just something about the technicalities of the legal system I don't understand in my faulting of it. But aside from the impossibility of serving this time and the unevenness of the sentencing, again in my opinion, there is something else that bothers me about Madoff's crime.

And I think it's the victims. Granted, Madoff was an equal opportunity burglar. If you check out this link, you can click on "email and letters" and it will show you actual copies of the letters and emails sent in by people victimized by Madoff. Incidentally, if you go about a third of the way down on the first batch, someone has sent a scam letter from the Congo asking for help cashing a check in return for 10% -- lololol. But, many of the notes include old folks whose entire pensions were tied up with Madoff, who are sick and have little hope of financial recovery, as well as many charitable institutions whose money was stolen. Allegedly he even robbed Spielberg. But when I read things like this from the victims, well, maybe you can see my irritation:

Madoff has shown “no remorse,” said victim Carla Hirschhorn, of Manalapan, New Jersey, at the hearing. She told Chin her life is a “living hell,” her mother is dependent on Social Security and her daughter works two jobs to pay tuition. link

The letters in the Wall Street Journal link frequently mention Madoff sticking them with "a home I cannot sell, my son's college fund gone and not a penny of savings."

If this is something to be outraged about, then where is the outrage for the working class people as well? They live it every day, not just when Wall Street investments get trashed. They might as well be saying: "I'm pissed because you made me into everybody else!?!" If having to work two jobs to pay for college is "outrageous" and makes this man a "monster", then why is it no less monstrous for other people's kids to have to work their way through college? If it is "pure evil" to cause someone to live on Social Security as their only means of support, where is the moral outrage for those elderly people who are forced to live on it now having lost no investments because they had nothing to invest?

If Madoff is a monster because he caused these social conditions, then who will be the voice asking for justice for those people who live these social conditions every day? It would seem that many people understand that it should be a problem to have to work two jobs for college tuition -- but it only applies if they're the ones suffering from lack of a trust fund.

I just can't get as worked up over some of the Madoff victims when there are Americans who work just as hard and have to use food banks to supplement their diets. If what Madoff did was "monstrous" -- what do we call the condition those Americans are in?

-- DV