Madoff: "Whole government is a Ponzi scheme"

Madoff: "Whole government is a Ponzi scheme"
90 Comments
In his latest interview, confessed scam artist Bernie Madoff says the "whole government is a Ponzi scheme." (AP Photo)
(AP) NEW YORK - Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff said in a magazine interview published Sunday that new regulatory reform enacted after the recent national financial crisis is laughable and that the federal government is a Ponzi scheme.


"The whole new regulatory reform is a joke," Madoff said during a telephone interview with New York magazine in which he discussed his disdain for the financial industry and for its regulators.


The interview was published on the magazine's website Sunday night.


Listen to tapes from New York magazine's Madoff interview


Madoff did an earlier New York Times interview in which he accused banks and hedge funds of being "complicit" in his Ponzi scheme to fleece people out of billions of dollars. He said they failed to scrutinize the discrepancies between his regulatory filings and other information.


He said in the New York magazine interview the Securities and Exchange Commission "looks terrible in this thing," and he said the "whole government is a Ponzi scheme."


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A Ponzi, or pyramid, scheme is a scam in which people are persuaded to invest through promises of unusually high returns, with early investors paid their returns out of money put in by later investors.


A court-appointed trustee seeking to recover money on behalf of the victims of Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme has filed a lawsuit against his primary banker, JPMorgan Chase, alleging the bank had suspected something wrong in his operation for years. The bank has denied any wrongdoing.


Madoff is serving a 150-year prison sentence in Butner, N.C., after pleading guilty in 2009 to fraud charges.


In the New York magazine interview, Madoff, 72, also said he was devastated by his son Mark Madoff's death and laments the pain he wrought on his family, especially his wife.


"She's angry at me," Madoff said. "I mean, you know, I destroyed our family."


Mark Madoff, 46, hanged himself with a dog leash in his Manhattan apartment on the second anniversary of his father's arrest. He left behind a wife and four children, ages 2 to 18.


At the time of his suicide, federal investigators had been trying to determine if he, his brother and an uncle participated in or knew about the fraud. The relatives, who held management positions at the family investment firm, denied any wrongdoing.


Bernard Madoff has maintained that his family didn't know about his Ponzi scheme.



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Madoff hit the nail on the head this time.
Reply to this comment ...by gosstom February 28, 2011 7:51 PM EST
him. He obviously knows a good one when he sees one.
Reply to this comment ...by bradkt1 February 28, 2011 5:08 PM EST
Bernie Madoff is right. Financial "reform" as passed by Congress is a joke and government financial responsibility has been a Ponzi scheme for decades.

As for the rest of it, this guy perpetrtated one of the largest financial frauds in history. He knows how it is done and why so many never got caught and/or went to jail. The politicians and financial institutions are in bed with these con artists up to their necks.
Reply to this comment ...by Rajah88 February 28, 2011 4:17 PM EST
I will wager many of you have heard Madoff*s argument before.

Coming from the source near you, it likely went like this:

**But everybody is doing it, Mommy/Daddy!**

Reply to this comment ...by skepticalJM February 28, 2011 4:05 PM EST
What is sad is that in a way, this guy is right; but not the way he means it. Our government is supporting the even bigger rackets by upholding a system that creates the kind of fat cats this guy wanted to be. The more we see the have-nots of our society increase, the more we see this system take its toll on all of us; replacing duty with envy; truth with hypocrisy; and freedom with greed. In a way we all have become Bernie Madoffs trying to play the system that has destroyed our unity as a society, and our trust in each other. As a result, the only thing we make in this world today, is more wars.
Reply to this comment ..by th9876 February 28, 2011 5:08 PM EST
Boy that's the truth. Great post.
...by documemts February 28, 2011 9:47 PM EST
Yeah, that's it.
....by notyrants February 28, 2011 3:57 PM EST
BTW, for those who monitor hits on their own browser from websites they visit...have you noticed the number of hits have gone from 2-3 to 20 or more in the past two weeks. Just curious what's going on. Google accesses your browser before you even surf to any website.
Reply to this comment ...by notyrants February 28, 2011 3:55 PM EST
Tedsliver February 28, 2011 2:59 PM EST
The problem is that felon Madoff is correct. Medicare, Social Security, and these Public Sector union pensions are all ponzi schemes.
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Madoff is correct, bank bailouts, lack of rules for Wall street and the financials, 38% tax rate for workers and 15% who sit around waiting for the dividend check to arrive or better hide their assets in Swiss and Israeli banks...untold ways the super rich get out of paying for the infrastructure they benefit most from....geeze...the list is long and much more to it than this BUT the people have their numbers and they've proven in Egypt that a dictator with 50 billion dollars can be ousted. What can the people of the United States prove?

The firefighters and police are standing in solidarity with the teachers. The "liberal" media doesn't seem to have much to say about this. Elections do have consequences and those who get elected under false pretenses face consequences.
Reply to this comment ..by bajajohn1 February 28, 2011 4:52 PM EST
Tedsliver: When you get old enough to retire, maybe the whole system that you complain of will no longer exist. Go ahead, put all your trust on Wall Street...let them play with your money.
....by choiceshaveconsequences February 28, 2011 3:22 PM EST