http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/nyregion/14lawyer.html?hp

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.

I assume most of you heard about the 50B Ponzi scheme that Madoff had going for decades. Now today, we have news of another huge financial scandal. What's going on here? There's always been frauds around, but 2 huge ones announced in 2 days? This one involving a prestigious Park Avenue lawyer. His firm had 250 lawyers. The people have already lost faith in goverment, Wall Street, now lawyers(granted lawyers historically rank low on the respect-o-meter). Now it's not safe to have money in escrow at a well-respected big Park Avenue law firm?

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I think that we'll see more of these. An unintended sideshow that I think is an effect of the financial crisis.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/nyregion/14lawyer.html?hp

.

.

I assume most of you heard about the 50B Ponzi scheme that Madoff had going for decades. Now today, we have news of another huge financial scandal. What's going on here? There's always been frauds around, but 2 huge ones announced in 2 days? This one involving a prestigious Park Avenue lawyer. His firm had 250 lawyers. The people have already lost faith in goverment, Wall Street, now lawyers(granted lawyers historically rank low on the respect-o-meter). Now it's not safe to have money in escrow at a well-respected big Park Avenue law firm?

.

I think that we'll see more of these. An unintended sideshow that I think is an effect of the financial crisis.

Just saw on CNBC that Norman Braman lost big money because of this.can't wait to read more on this its all pretty fascinating.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/nyregion/14lawyer.html?hp

.

.

I assume most of you heard about the 50B Ponzi scheme that Madoff had going for decades. Now today, we have news of another huge financial scandal. What's going on here? There's always been frauds around, but 2 huge ones announced in 2 days? This one involving a prestigious Park Avenue lawyer. His firm had 250 lawyers. The people have already lost faith in goverment, Wall Street, now lawyers(granted lawyers historically rank low on the respect-o-meter). Now it's not safe to have money in escrow at a well-respected big Park Avenue law firm?

.

I think that we'll see more of these. An unintended sideshow that I think is an effect of the financial crisis.

Just saw on CNBC that Norman Braman lost big money because of this.can't wait to read more on this its all pretty fascinating.

Heard on the radio the Owner of hte NY Mets lost almost 500 million. Another big name I heard was Steven Speilberg was another one who was part of the scheme.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/nyregion/14lawyer.html?hp

.

.

I assume most of you heard about the 50B Ponzi scheme that Madoff had going for decades. Now today, we have news of another huge financial scandal. What's going on here? There's always been frauds around, but 2 huge ones announced in 2 days? This one involving a prestigious Park Avenue lawyer. His firm had 250 lawyers. The people have already lost faith in goverment, Wall Street, now lawyers(granted lawyers historically rank low on the respect-o-meter). Now it's not safe to have money in escrow at a well-respected big Park Avenue law firm?

.

I think that we'll see more of these. An unintended sideshow that I think is an effect of the financial crisis.

Just saw on CNBC that Norman Braman lost big money because of this.can't wait to read more on this its all pretty fascinating.

Heard on the radio the Owner of hte NY Mets lost almost 500 million. Another big name I heard was Steven Speilberg was another one who was part of the scheme.

 

 

I still don't quite understand how it all worked and don't have the time to research right now...anyone want to attempt to explain it to me like I'm Michael Scott?

But it's ok, let's deregulate them some more so we can have 50 more guys doing this! Free market, hell yea!!!

 

/sarcasm

Some very big banks also were effected. Including one of the biggest banks in the Northeast and in Europe. Royal Bank of Scotland aka Citizens Bank in the Northeast.

I still don't quite understand how it all worked and don't have the time to research right now...anyone want to attempt to explain it to me like I'm Michael Scott?

 

 

If it was basically a Ponzi scheme as they're suggesting, then I think the high returns came from new, incoming investment money, not out of profits as you would expect.

 

With a guy who'd been around and respected as much as Madoff, I'm sure there was no shortage of new investors to pay off the existing ones.

Interesting graphic that shows just how far-reaching this goes...

 

link

But it's ok, let's deregulate them some more so we can have 50 more guys doing this! Free market, hell yea!!!

 

/sarcasm

Oh no lets create more regulations, because the SEC and all the regulations have been so effective in stopping these kind of frauds.

 

This isn't a question of the free market vs socialism, its a question of fraud. We should deregulate because:

#1 - Regulation puts unnecessary pressure and costs on legitimate and honest businesses to jump through regulatory hoops. And that is on top of the costs to taxpayers to fund agencies like the SEC.

#2 - Regulation deceives investors and consumers into believing that frauds are legitimate businesses. Madoff is the perfect example - take the investors who were suspicious and reported him to the SEC in the 90s. The SEC clearly gave Madoff & co the seal of approval that they were on the up and up, even though we know better now, and so the investors stuck with him. I would argue that without the SEC & such making it seem as though Madoff's business was legit, that those suspicious investors would have simply taken their money out, and so would any other investor that was mindful of what was going on with their money and concerned about the fact that Madoff's numbers were unintelligible. But having those great regulations and enforcement agencies causes people to assume businesses must be honest and legitimate when in fact they should be concerned.

#3 - IT DOESN'T WORK! Madoff's fraud was illegal already, the SEC had looked at him before and his scam went on for more than a decade. It would be one thing if all the costs incurred by excessive regulations to both private businesses and to the taxpayers could at least be justified by effective prevention of this kind of fraud, even something like a Ponzi scheme which has been known and discussed for over 80 years. If it can't even stop such a huge and classic fraud until after everyone loses their money, what value does it have? And what do you think are the odds of them catching new and innovative scams on smaller scales? Without regulations and the SEC, investors and consumers wouldn't simply assume that all functioning businesses are legit and far fewer would get caught up in these sorts of messes.

The reason the SEC and other regulatory agencies have failed in their job recently is simple: Bush appointed heavily connected businessmen to run just about every regulatory agency. A mine owner was the head of the Mine Safety Board, an oilman was in charge of the Department of the Interior, etc. Regulation isn't going to work if you put people in these kinds of positions who don't believe that their businesses should be regulated anyway.

The reason the SEC and other regulatory agencies have failed in their job recently is simple: Bush appointed heavily connected businessmen to run just about every regulatory agency. A mine owner was the head of the Mine Safety Board, an oilman was in charge of the Department of the Interior, etc. Regulation isn't going to work if you put people in these kinds of positions who don't believe that their businesses should be regulated anyway.

 

we have laws against robbery, and that doesn't stop it ...right?

 

these are highly educated thugs (criminals) that find loopholes and are geniuses at exploiting the system. You put something else in place, and they will find a way to exploit it. It is impossible to end this kind of stuff from happening and it is cost prohibitive.

The reason the SEC and other regulatory agencies have failed in their job recently is simple: Bush appointed heavily connected businessmen to run just about every regulatory agency. A mine owner was the head of the Mine Safety Board, an oilman was in charge of the Department of the Interior, etc. Regulation isn't going to work if you put people in these kinds of positions who don't believe that their businesses should be regulated anyway.

So why did the SEC do nothing about Madoff through the entire 8 years of the Clinton administration through which he was running this scheme? I'm not even gonna argue that it has anything to do with Madoff donating to the Clintons and every other NY Democrat from Rangel to Schumer & all the rest, and even Pres-Elect Obama. You can't just blame this on Bush. Regulators have never been effective in preventing crimes, and Madoff is a perfect example.

 

And even though I disagree with the idea of these kinds of regulatory agencies in the first place, just for argument's sake, who do you think should run these agencies? Do you think someone who knows next-to-nothing about mining should be in charge of the Mine Safety Board, for example? And lets see who Obama appoints here as well, cause I'm willing to be that it won't be a bunch of outsiders.

The reason the SEC and other regulatory agencies have failed in their job recently is simple: Bush appointed heavily connected businessmen to run just about every regulatory agency. A mine owner was the head of the Mine Safety Board, an oilman was in charge of the Department of the Interior, etc. Regulation isn't going to work if you put people in these kinds of positions who don't believe that their businesses should be regulated anyway.

So why did the SEC do nothing about Madoff through the entire 8 years of the Clinton administration through which he was running this scheme? I'm not even gonna argue that it has anything to do with Madoff donating to the Clintons and every other NY Democrat from Rangel to Schumer & all the rest, and even Pres-Elect Obama. You can't just blame this on Bush. Regulators have never been effective in preventing crimes, and Madoff is a perfect example.

 

And even though I disagree with the idea of these kinds of regulatory agencies in the first place, just for argument's sake, who do you think should run these agencies? Do you think someone who knows next-to-nothing about mining should be in charge of the Mine Safety Board, for example? And lets see who Obama appoints here as well, cause I'm willing to be that it won't be a bunch of outsiders.

All he they do is blame everything on Bush. It will be a scapegoat for the entire Obama presidency also.

 

It is almost as funny as an inconvenient truth... Gore slams Bush about his presidency and opps... I think he forgot to talk about the Clinton/Gore flaws also...

The reason the SEC and other regulatory agencies have failed in their job recently is simple: Bush appointed heavily connected businessmen to run just about every regulatory agency. A mine owner was the head of the Mine Safety Board, an oilman was in charge of the Department of the Interior, etc. Regulation isn't going to work if you put people in these kinds of positions who don't believe that their businesses should be regulated anyway.

So why did the SEC do nothing about Madoff through the entire 8 years of the Clinton administration through which he was running this scheme? I'm not even gonna argue that it has anything to do with Madoff donating to the Clintons and every other NY Democrat from Rangel to Schumer & all the rest, and even Pres-Elect Obama. You can't just blame this on Bush. Regulators have never been effective in preventing crimes, and Madoff is a perfect example.

 

And even though I disagree with the idea of these kinds of regulatory agencies in the first place, just for argument's sake, who do you think should run these agencies? Do you think someone who knows next-to-nothing about mining should be in charge of the Mine Safety Board, for example? And lets see who Obama appoints here as well, cause I'm willing to be that it won't be a bunch of outsiders.

All he they do is blame everything on Bush. It will be a scapegoat for the entire Obama presidency also.

 

It is almost as funny as an inconvenient truth... Gore slams Bush about his presidency and opps... I think he forgot to talk about the Clinton/Gore flaws also...

Oh, Clinton made boatloads of mistakes. It would take me awhile to post them all.

 

I plan to be fair towards Obama, but I'm not going to do what the GOP has been doing throughout Bush's presidency, that is, trying to push the blame backwards to Clinton.

The reason the SEC and other regulatory agencies have failed in their job recently is simple: Bush appointed heavily connected businessmen to run just about every regulatory agency. A mine owner was the head of the Mine Safety Board, an oilman was in charge of the Department of the Interior, etc. Regulation isn't going to work if you put people in these kinds of positions who don't believe that their businesses should be regulated anyway.

So why did the SEC do nothing about Madoff through the entire 8 years of the Clinton administration through which he was running this scheme? I'm not even gonna argue that it has anything to do with Madoff donating to the Clintons and every other NY Democrat from Rangel to Schumer & all the rest, and even Pres-Elect Obama. You can't just blame this on Bush. Regulators have never been effective in preventing crimes, and Madoff is a perfect example.

 

And even though I disagree with the idea of these kinds of regulatory agencies in the first place, just for argument's sake, who do you think should run these agencies? Do you think someone who knows next-to-nothing about mining should be in charge of the Mine Safety Board, for example? And lets see who Obama appoints here as well, cause I'm willing to be that it won't be a bunch of outsiders.

All he they do is blame everything on Bush. It will be a scapegoat for the entire Obama presidency also.

 

It is almost as funny as an inconvenient truth... Gore slams Bush about his presidency and opps... I think he forgot to talk about the Clinton/Gore flaws also...

Oh, Clinton made boatloads of mistakes. It would take me awhile to post them all.

 

I plan to be fair towards Obama, but I'm not going to do what the GOP has been doing throughout Bush's presidency, that is, trying to push the blame backwards to Clinton.

If you're willing to accept that both the Democrats and the Republicans have failed to do something that has never been done in history (which is regulate effictively and efficiently), then why do you think more regulation will do more good? I've already explained how regulation contributed to this mess, and we all need to stop looking to the government to solve problems that can only be solved through the corrective forces of the free market, especially as we stifle those forces by allowing the government to mislead honest investors.

This crime didn't happen without any warning. There were a number of people over the years who said Madoff's operation wasn't legit. Here is one of them.

 

http://fe3.story.media.ac4.yahoo.com/news/...l_whistleblower

 

Mass. investor saw inside Madoff scam

By JAY LINDSAY, Associated Press Writer Jay Lindsay, Associated Press Writer – Fri Dec 19, 8:30 am ET

 

BOSTON – His repeated warnings that Wall Street money manager Bernard Madoff was running a giant Ponzi scheme have cast Harry Markopolos as an unheeded prophet.

 

But people who know or worked with Markopolos say it wasn't prescience that helped him foresee the collapse of Madoff's alleged $50 billion fraud. Instead, they say diligence and a strong moral sense drove his quixotic, nine-year quest to alert regulators about Madoff.

 

"He followed through on everything he ever did. He never let up," said his mother, Georgia Markopolos, in an interview Thursday. "Some kids just let it go if it's too hard, but he wouldn't do that."

 

"He feels very sorry for these people that got taken," she added. "It wouldn't have happened if they would have listened to him long ago."

 

Markopolos waged a remarkable battle to uncover fraud at Madoff's operation, sounding the alarm back in 1999 and continuing with his warnings all through this decade. The government never acted, Madoff continued his ways, and people lost billions.

 

Markopolos reached his conclusion with the help of mathematicians like Dan diBartolomeo, whose analysis of the Madoff's methods in 1999 helped fuel Markopolos' suspicions.

 

"People should have seen the writing on the wall," diBartolomeo said.

 

Markopolos did not respond to multiple e-mail or phone requests for an interview.

 

The 52-year-old resident of Whitman, about 20 miles south of Boston, grew up in Erie, Pa., the oldest of three siblings.

 

His mother said her son was a little nerdy as a child, as well as occasionally mischievous and unfailingly honest. She recalled an incident where he pelted his elementary school with eggs in the middle of winter, but no one saw him. Time passed with no confession from anyone, until Markopolos stepped forward, admitted he did it, and cleaned the school himself.

 

Markopolos became an adept hunter and fisherman as he grew up, like many from the rural area, but also showed early aptitude at academics, as well as a willingness to question authority.

 

"He used to challenge the teachers," his mother said with a laugh. "He'd tell them he had the right answers, but they had the wrong questions."

 

Markopolos graduated from Cathedral Prep in Erie in 1974, then in 1981 from Loyola College in Maryland, which his mother said he paid for on his own. After time in the Army and in the financial services field, he earned a graduate management degree from Boston College in 1997.

 

By 1999, he was working for Rampart Investment Management Co. and charged with doing competitive research on Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, which was using a similar investment strategy as his company, but far outperforming it. Part of Markopolos's research included a visit to diBartolomeo, whom he knew from his professional circle.

 

"I think he was curious about how his competitor was doing so much better than they were," diBartolomeo recalled.

 

Researching Madoff's numbers, using data the firm distributed to prospective investors, diBartolomeo concluded within hours that it was impossible for Madoff to get the returns he reported while using the strategy he said he used.

 

"As the market goes up and down, this strategy should have done a little better or a little worse, just like everybody else," he said. "Instead, it appeared to be indifferent as to whether the market went up or down. They made money all the time."

 

Markopolos complained to the SEC's Boston office in May 1999, saying it was impossible for the kind of profit Madoff was reporting to have been gained legally.

 

But Madoff continued to thrive, even as Markopolos continued to pursue the case.

 

In 2005, he submitted a report to the SEC saying it was "highly likely" that "Madoff Securities is the world's largest Ponzi scheme." In the report, he says he knew his research could ruin people's careers and asked the SEC be discreet about circulating the report and his name.

 

"I am worried about the personal safety of myself and my family," he wrote.

 

The report highlights 29 "red flags" about Madoff's business, among them the returns of a third-party hedge fund managed by Madoff's firm which had negative returns in just seven on the 174 months Markopolos analyzed.

 

"No major league baseball hitter bats .960, no NFL team has ever gone 96 wins and only 4 losses over a 100 game span, and you can bet everything you own that no money manager is up 96% of the months either," he said.

 

His warnings were heard too late, and he's become a symbol of a botched oversight of Madoff by the SEC. His mother says the father of three boys under 5 has been bombarded by media requests. Now, a man who tried to be heard for years is going to lay low for a bit, she said.

 

"Right now, he's out relaxing some place," he said. "I can't even get in touch with him."

Clinton did a far better job of regulation than Bush (who never really tried). There were few major business scandals that happened under Clinton's watch, whereas under Bush, we had Enron, WorldCom, most of the financial giants, and many banks go under due to illegal or unethical business practices. At least some of these companies are gone and won't be able to pull stunts like that again. Sadly, I don't think many business titans ever learned the lessons of Enron.

Clinton did a far better job of regulation than Bush (who never really tried). There were few major business scandals that happened under Clinton's watch, whereas under Bush, we had Enron, WorldCom, most of the financial giants, and many banks go under due to illegal or unethical business practices. At least some of these companies are gone and won't be able to pull stunts like that again. Sadly, I don't think many business titans ever learned the lessons of Enron.

 

This isn't really the best place to posit this considering Madoff was running his scam during the Clinton years.

Clinton did a far better job of regulation than Bush (who never really tried). There were few major business scandals that happened under Clinton's watch, whereas under Bush, we had Enron, WorldCom, most of the financial giants, and many banks go under due to illegal or unethical business practices. At least some of these companies are gone and won't be able to pull stunts like that again. Sadly, I don't think many business titans ever learned the lessons of Enron.

Madoff & Enron didn't exactly start during the Bush years. These people were running their scams all through the Clinton years - simply because their frauds didn't go bust under Clinton's watch isn't something to credit Clinton for. If anything, you would have to give Bush credit for the fact that he and his regulators "stopped" these frauds, even if it was really the instability of their schemes that did it. Seriously, how do you argue that Clinton did a better job of regulation when Madoff & Enron & surely others we still haven't found out about yet went on doing fraudulent business as usual throughout the Clinton years?

Clinton did a far better job of regulation than Bush (who never really tried). There were few major business scandals that happened under Clinton's watch, whereas under Bush, we had Enron, WorldCom, most of the financial giants, and many banks go under due to illegal or unethical business practices. At least some of these companies are gone and won't be able to pull stunts like that again. Sadly, I don't think many business titans ever learned the lessons of Enron.

 

The government never does a good job of regulation, because regulations are inherently flawed.

 

WorldCom and Enron are Clinton era messes that collapsed while Bush was President. Fannie and Freddie is a Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush mess that collapse while Bush was presient. If Madoff held out another couple of months he would be a Clinton and Bush era mess that collapsed while Obama was President. And there will undoubtedly be Obama-era messes that collapse when his successor is in office.

 

Regulation is never the answer unless your question is: "How can we move more jobs and money to other countries?"

Clinton did a far better job of regulation than Bush (who never really tried). There were few major business scandals that happened under Clinton's watch, whereas under Bush, we had Enron, WorldCom, most of the financial giants, and many banks go under due to illegal or unethical business practices. At least some of these companies are gone and won't be able to pull stunts like that again. Sadly, I don't think many business titans ever learned the lessons of Enron.

 

The government never does a good job of regulation, because regulations are inherently flawed.

 

WorldCom and Enron are Clinton era messes that collapsed while Bush was President. Fannie and Freddie is a Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush mess that collapse while Bush was presient. If Madoff held out another couple of months he would be a Clinton and Bush era mess that collapsed while Obama was President. And there will undoubtedly be Obama-era messes that collapse when his successor is in office.

 

Regulation is never the answer unless your question is: "How can we move more jobs and money to other countries?"

 

You have to have some really good blinders on to say we need less, not more regulation of business after seeing the catastrophic mess that we find ourselves in as a result of, in large part, deregulation of business or a lack of regulation.

 

Time and time again it has been proven that businessmen and businesswomen left to their own devices without sound rules and regulations - from the tulip market collapse in the 17th century Europe to the Bernie Madoff scam of the century - will eventually end in disaster.

You have to have some really good blinders on to say we need less, not more regulation of business after seeing the catastrophic mess that we find ourselves in as a result of, in large part, deregulation of business or a lack of regulation.

 

Time and time again it has been proven that businessmen and businesswomen left to their own devices without any regulation - from the tulip market collapse in the 17th century Europe to the Bernie Madoff scam of the century - will eventually end in disaster.

The opposite is true, although I won't suggest it's obvious, because the problems caused by regulation aren't immediately obvious.

 

Greedy businessmen left to their own devices could never have accomplished scams of the same magnitude as Madoff's without government regulation, and if I am being unclear, I am saying literally that government regulations enabled Madoff to pull off this scam. What he did was already illegal, without having the SEC there. But what was the function of the SEC in this case? It was to deceive investors by convincing them that they had investigated Madoff and that his operations were legal and legitimate. Suspicious investors realized that Madoff was up to something and reported him to the SEC, which then turned around and gave Madoff their stamp of approval. Now whether that was an honest failure or corruption is almost irrelevant because your chances of creating a regulatory agency (or any organization for that matter) that suffers from no corruption or incompetence are 0%. It will happen because human beings will always make mistakes. The problem wasn't that the SEC failed to notice a scam like Madoff's, that is inevitable. The problem was that all his investors were dependent on the SEC to determine how trustworthy an investment was/is. They expected the impossible - that the SEC could and would catch every case of fraud in the market, so they invested recklessly. Without the SEC, suspicious investors would simply have taken out their money and probably taken their suspicions public, leading to more investors doing the same and ending Madoff's scheme 9 years sooner, rather than having Markopolos's tip being lost somewhere in the SEC's offices.

 

If there is a need to investigate a company due to suspicious behavior and such, it should be the job of the POLICE, not some political "regulatory" agency staffed by industry insiders, to conduct the investigation.

 

And if you're gonna bring up something like Tulipmania as an example of bad business, I don't think it's fair to detach it from irrational spending patterns that probably had something to with the bubonic plague that was going around at the time.

You have to have some really good blinders on to say we need less, not more regulation of business after seeing the catastrophic mess that we find ourselves in as a result of, in large part, deregulation of business or a lack of regulation.

 

Time and time again it has been proven that businessmen and businesswomen left to their own devices without sound rules and regulations - from the tulip market collapse in the 17th century Europe to the Bernie Madoff scam of the century - will eventually end in disaster.

 

You have to have a fundamental lack of understanding of the concept of regulation to blame deregulation for the current mess. A central bank, pressured by the government, artificially inflated the money supply. This, combined with a government mandate that required loans to persons for reasons other than credit-worthiness caused a massive false value market for real estate, which encouraged reckless investment, which left everyone holding the bag when the market collapsed (which was inevitable).

 

Madoff is not a result of inadequate oversight, it is a matter of fraud. All of his activitied were subject to regulation and as such, people would have an expectation that he would have been caught sometime in the last decade.

 

And the tulip collapse was driven by an act of the Dutch Parliment that permitted persons to opt out of flower contracts before delivery. Therefore the tulip market was artificially inflated by an anti-free market measure. So it isn't even a good example.

Clinton did a far better job of regulation than Bush (who never really tried). There were few major business scandals that happened under Clinton's watch, whereas under Bush, we had Enron, WorldCom, most of the financial giants, and many banks go under due to illegal or unethical business practices. At least some of these companies are gone and won't be able to pull stunts like that again. Sadly, I don't think many business titans ever learned the lessons of Enron.

 

The government never does a good job of regulation, because regulations are inherently flawed.

 

WorldCom and Enron are Clinton era messes that collapsed while Bush was President. Fannie and Freddie is a Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush mess that collapse while Bush was presient. If Madoff held out another couple of months he would be a Clinton and Bush era mess that collapsed while Obama was President. And there will undoubtedly be Obama-era messes that collapse when his successor is in office.

 

Regulation is never the answer unless your question is: "How can we move more jobs and money to other countries?"

 

You have to have some really good blinders on to say we need less, not more regulation of business after seeing the catastrophic mess that we find ourselves in as a result of, in large part, deregulation of business or a lack of regulation.

 

Time and time again it has been proven that businessmen and businesswomen left to their own devices without sound rules and regulations - from the tulip market collapse in the 17th century Europe to the Bernie Madoff scam of the century - will eventually end in disaster.

Thank you. That's what I've been saying for ages.

Clinton did a far better job of regulation than Bush (who never really tried). There were few major business scandals that happened under Clinton's watch, whereas under Bush, we had Enron, WorldCom, most of the financial giants, and many banks go under due to illegal or unethical business practices. At least some of these companies are gone and won't be able to pull stunts like that again. Sadly, I don't think many business titans ever learned the lessons of Enron.

 

The government never does a good job of regulation, because regulations are inherently flawed.

 

WorldCom and Enron are Clinton era messes that collapsed while Bush was President. Fannie and Freddie is a Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush mess that collapse while Bush was presient. If Madoff held out another couple of months he would be a Clinton and Bush era mess that collapsed while Obama was President. And there will undoubtedly be Obama-era messes that collapse when his successor is in office.

 

Regulation is never the answer unless your question is: "How can we move more jobs and money to other countries?"

 

You have to have some really good blinders on to say we need less, not more regulation of business after seeing the catastrophic mess that we find ourselves in as a result of, in large part, deregulation of business or a lack of regulation.

 

Time and time again it has been proven that businessmen and businesswomen left to their own devices without sound rules and regulations - from the tulip market collapse in the 17th century Europe to the Bernie Madoff scam of the century - will eventually end in disaster.

Thank you. That's what I've been saying for ages.

 

IDK, you could say over interference has caused a lot of these problems. The madoff problem is a bad SEC commissioner. But the other problems are getting in the way too often. As I stated earlier, look at Europe during the great depression, it was much shorter and only a small depression, becuse they did not interfere.