Put Madoff In Charge of Social Security

[ymarkov]

In all likelihood, Mr. Madoff was not running a pure Ponzi scheme, but had real assets. He was operating a blind pool, in which investors had no real idea what they owned or how it was performing, relying on Mr. Madoff who reported metronomic returns, brooked no nosiness into his methods, and seemed always willing to pay off investors who wanted to withdraw their money.

He may have been casual from the start about what money he used to pay withdrawals. It is almost inconceivable, though, that he could have built a true Ponzi scheme to a height of $50 billion, in which there were never any real assets, just his superhuman 40-year juggling act to ensure new investors were recruited as needed to provide funds to meet withdrawal requests from earlier investors.

If so, he is a genius who should immediately be put in charge of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds.

(Holman W. Jenkins writing in the Wall Street Journal)

Comments

[disbalanced.livejournal.com]

Интересная статья, спасибо. Вся эта история меня вообще чрезвычайно впечатлила.

[malenkiy-scot.livejournal.com]

More likely, his firm devolved into a Ponzi scheme only when serious losses hit and he decided not to level with investors but to gamble on a resurrection.

That's what I'm guessing, too. We'll find out soon.

Never thought about it, but SS is one giant pyramid scheme.