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Career Resources
It goes into the psychology of Madoff: he would rather be a liar than a failure.
Haven’t started it yet- would you recommend?
I’ve seen the first episode of four - it’s pretty interesting.
Very compelling documentary and obviously an unbelievable story. I have many thoughts but some of the highlights for me were:
That concludes my investment highlights... Highly recommend though!
One of the things Madoff even stated they could have done to absolutely ruin him years before he was caught was just check with the DTCC. The only rational explanation for how he got away with it for so long was that regulators were actively choosing NOT to investigate him seriously.
I read the former chairman of the SECs book “Take on the Street.” He had an appendix of Washington letters he got while in office telling him to back off on Enron, including one from Bush. I can imagine it’s a hard job where you investigate the wrong person, you’re committing career suicide at best, or killing future funding for the SEC at worst. It’s a precious organization.
It makes me feel better about my Vanguard dollar cost average strategy…
Re the kids not knowing; To me, the employees vouching for their frustration and constant badgering to be let in on what was going on the 17th floor (or whatever number floor it was) along with Bernie's ashes still sitting in a lawyers office somewhere, would indicate that they were kept in the dark. The Doc & employees made him out to be family centric and it would make sense that he didn't want them to be indicted. - Honestly who knows though...I haven't looked but I wonder what evidence was presented against them in the trial.
With regards to the kids, does anyone really know what their parents are doing professionally? I sure don't. I still don't know my parents net worth and I'm the named executor of the estate in the will. Maybe some parents were different, but I just can't imagine Bernie talking about slinging options at the dinner table with his kids captivated and eventually discovering that the volume of options didn't exist.
I thought it was done well and to the point. No dramatization / over exaggeration (can't say the same about 'The Dropout' covering Theranos - very inaccurate in some of their portrayals).
Agree with the sons, I have a hard time believing they weren't at least suspicious of their father. But I also do think they were innocent. Would they have gone to regulators / SEC to have them investigate their suspicions? Probably not. Most of us who grew up in structured homes tend to not really question our parents unless we see clear wrongdoing.
I’ll watch this as a friend of mine met Madoff at his Jewish country club. He (a CFA/Masters in Econ investment analysis whiz) and his aunt (JD at Family Office) questioned the man privately and he explained that they just don’t get it in an insulting tone dismissing further questions. They didn’t like the blow off and didn’t perform future diligence. Many at the country club went in on the opportunity. He never thought of him as a fraud, just too opaque for their tastes.
Despite my user name, I dislike the fame that bad actors and crooks in financial services receive. We need more honest advisor in Montana vs Long Island boiler room crook. Who says crime doesn’t pay?
I’ll watch this, but I’d be interested where the earnings from this production go. I would hope at least some will be routed as restitution for the victims.
Except the assumption is that people should be honest. The honest financial advisor in Montana isn't worthy of applause, just because he's not screwing over his clients. Glorifying that is in a lot of ways worse than vilifying the con artists, because it gives the impression that those folks are doing something actively right instead of a bare minimum. Beyond that, it's easier to write the negative stories because the alignment of incentives on Wall Street is so fundamentally broken that it's difficult to point to anyone who is consistently acting in a perfectly ethical manner.
It's also just not as good of a story; the schadenfreude of watching someone piss away that much wealth is entertaining, and there's more meat to the story than "he did a lot of good and incisive research and made his investors an annualized 7% return net of fees".
I started it but couldn’t get over how dramatized and dressy it felt with the fake Bernie actor(s). Maybe I’ll retry later.
In the last episode there is a decent metaphor relating the actors/set to the actual story, but I agree, super corny.
Decent watch. I have to wonder though (slowly putting my tinfoil hat on)...how did the inclusion of JP Morgan and the military invasion post 9/11 into the Middle East affect the game?
War's are always great ways to launder money. You would want a bank like JP Morgan to oversee such an operation. JP Morgan would primarily be laundering money for politicians who had invested heavily in the war effort. Those same politicians could've been the ones who pulled back on the SEC investigating further. I mean, if it weren't for 2008, how long would it have continued on for?
You can low key make parallels to Citadel's Ken Griffin (who had a personal relationship with Madoff) but no one wants to talk about it
Why isnt this more upvoted? Kenny G is a notorious con artist and I think the whole Robinhood scandal showed his true colors
Good documentary. I saw coverage on Madoff 24/7 in 2009 on tv, it was crazy. I wonder if there is another massive Ponzi scheme looming around waiting to be unraveled by another 09 but I guess not since the market did take a dive this year and I haven’t heard of anything (aside from FTX). In 2009, Bernie Madoff, Allen Stanford ($8bn), Tom Petters ($3.65Bn), Scott Rothstein ($1.2bn).
Market took a nice dive during COVID which should have exposed someone running a ponzi racket. I have a feeling once there is a real pullback for more than a month or two, a Ponzi will be uncovered. If you just check Google News for Ponzi you get rampant results
I talked to a prosecutor who was part of the investigation of one of the other people you named. He said the real amazing attribute is the calmness these people have during a surprise interrogation. Most people don't have good poker faces when the alphabet boys show up flexing a warrant; they know their goose is cooked and fun time is over. One of the individuals you mentioned never flinched on multiple visits from the boys. In his words, if you think you were smart enough not to be deceived by this person, you're looking at a fool in the mirror.
I feel like you are alluding to Stanford, dude seemed like the cockiest guy alive. Still proclaiming innocence in prison lol.
As someone who was still relatively young when the Madoff scandal broke, this was my first time learning that Madoff had separate, completely legitimate market-making business. And in fact, it was this market-making business that won him fame and acclaim throughout Wall Street while he deliberately kept the investment advisory side discreet and concealed from the public eye. Makes even less sense that he was running a Ponzi scheme for decades when he would have been a celebrated Wall Street executive just for his pioneering work with Nasdaq and revolutionizing market-making with the implementation of computer systems into his firm. Really boggles the mind.
Edit: several of those interviewed in the documentary (especially the psychologist types) speculate that Madoff did what he did because he was afraid of coming across as a failure to others... So I'm a bit perplexed that his market-making business didn't sate his ego in that regard, since it made him an indisputable success and landmark figure in Wall Street. Maybe he got caught in a lie ever since his father-in-law bailed him out in the 1960s and the lie just kept growing, without any way for him to snuff it out.
I really enjoyed the Netflix program. It was well done and seemed very authentic.
Long ago I watched this documentary. It has Michael Bienes in it who was a feeder into Madoffs fund for years. It’s remarkable that as a CPA he didn’t suspect anything. I believe he thinks he’s smarter than the interviewer and is lying through his teeth. He has a few twitches that are tells.
https://www.pbs.org/video/frontline-the-madoff-affair/
Imma watch it now that people here have given good reviews. Usually don't really like Netflix finance docs cuz they stretch shit out for length, and dumb things down so that the content is trivial. E.g., the Wirecard doc
It’s pretty wild that he had a legitimate business that seemed to be doing well and then did this on the side for seemingly no reason (skimming money for himself?). Also I can’t believe he didn’t try to exit this fake business to save himself - he worked through numerous market downturns where he could have pretended to lose big, return remaining funds to investors, and stop that business
The way it's presented in the documentary, he never seemed to live that big and above his means. He had the penthouse in New York, the house in Montauk, the house in Palm Beach, the house in France but I'd expect no less from someone at the head (and founder to boot) of a market-making firm that was processing 10% of all trades on Wall Street. Not to mention the public speaking fees and such that you can charge when you reach that kind of prominence (he'd already been Chairman of Nasdaq twice or something).
So I'm wondering what the side business even did for him? Won him further fame as a brilliant hedge fund manager and added to his list of achievements? Not really since he kept it all hush-hush. Bigger paycheck? Not even sure he needed the money, and I don't see any evidence of him living larger than any typical Wall Street executive...
To your other point about not getting out earlier, I had the same question myself. I think that he wasn't under a lot of scrutiny from his investors so long as he handed them steady, positive returns. But as soon as he turned around and told that he had lost 50% or more on his positions, they would have asked to see his trades, proof of his losses, etc. and that would have unraveled the whole operation.
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