Morning monkeys,

Today marks the 4th anniversary of the Bernie Madoff investment scandal that shocked everyone on Wall St. as well as those at the SEC who wasn't too busy watching porn. Perhaps that's unfair, obviously the SEC does more than watch redtube all day because they investigated Madoff several times. Including an investigation of fraud in 2006 (which concluded in 2007) where they found no evidence despite having already been given the correct answer by Harry Markopolos.

Nevertheless, on the fourth anniversary of the scandal, Yahoo! Finance offers some advice to those who want to avoid ponzi schemes. Frankly, I find their list a bit wanting, so I thought I'd pose the question to all you monkeys out there:

How would you avoid a ponzi scheme?

If you needed yet more proof that 2nd Place is the first loser, allow me to present the sad case of Arthur Nadel, who died in prison on Monday at age 80. Who, you say? Exactly. He's basically a nobody in today's context of financial scam artists, but if it hadn't been for Bernie Madoff this guy would've been big news.

You see, Nadel and a few co-conspirators ran a number of sham hedge funds in South Florida, and boasted AUM of over $300 million when in fact the funds had less than $500,000 in them. In all, Nadel pocketed over $160 million in a massive Ponzi scheme. Redemption requests brought the house of cards down in January of 2009, and Artie high-tailed it out of Florida. He left cryptic suicide notes and paranoid predictions that someone was going to kill him for two weeks before turning himself in.

Again, this would have been huge news if Bernie Madoff hadn't turned himself in just a month earlier behind a previously unthinkable $50 billion Ponzi scheme. Ironically, Nadel ended up in the same prison as Madoff but got none of the same media recognition despite orchestrating the largest scam in southwest Florida history. While the media published reports about Madoff's daily comings and goings at Butner Federal Correction Complex, Nadel's death on Monday garnered nothing more than an update on the prison's website indicating that he was deceased. No cause of death was given.

I often debate the merits of higher education with myself and my surroundings. On one hand there is no doubt that educational keys unlock the doors to power and success. On the other hand there is the increasingly astronomical cost of higher education, sentencing the recent grad to his or her student loan payment prison.

Though this community is far more cognizant of the values of top notch diplomas, I wonder if everyone here is aware of the real costs of attending college. I urge you guys to think twice about how much you really want to pay for that piece of paper. It really may not be worth the pulp it was printed on soon enough...

There's plenty of serious stuff to write about today, but the fact that it's Friday has me in the mood to take a little trip down memory lane and share one of the goofier Wall Street stories from my past with you guys. It might go a little long, but I think you'll enjoy it because it highlights some of the crazy stuff that got funded back in the day. A buddy of mine from back then (who's now a hedge fund manager in California) tipped me off to the fact that CNBC did an American Greed episode about this nutjob, which is in fact scheduled to air again next Sunday night (the 16th) at 8:00 p.m. if you want to check it out.

Anyway, we did a lot of crazy deals back in the early '90s. You guys enjoyed my piece on BioTime, so here's another for your amusement, albeit a story without a happy ending (unless you consider a 25-year sentence a happy ending). I'd been in the business for three or four months when I was told the firm was doing a secondary offering on a blimp company. The announcement was met by groans from the veterans at the firm, because we'd done the IPO on the company and the blimp they bought with the money crashed and burned.

Back to business today boys. After all...it's Saturday! I want to address two (IMHO) key issues for the finance world going forward. These issues will specifically effect those of you entering Wall Street soon and those who have hit the ground running recently. Both issues were addressed in the online WSJ over the last 24 hours. Here they are:

1) The Clawback

So says Robert L. Miller, a former lawyer and money manager for the SEC who recently avoided a 20-year prison sentence for colluding with Marc Dreier in a Madoff-style ponzi scheme that bilked investors out of $400+ million, by telling the judge that he only did it because he was drunk. Case closed.

Yup. Miller's whole case rested on the fact that he was too drunk to know he was committing a crime. And it worked. Because he's like a chocoholic -- but for booze. I hope you'll join me in a standing ovation for his attorney. Oh, and if you listen closely, you'll be able to hear about 2 million jail cells opening and their occupants being excused.