SEC Missed Madoff's Ponzi Scheme

U.S. regulators never inspected Bernard Madoff's investment advisory business, alleged to be a Ponzi scheme that cost investors $50 billion, after he subjected it to oversight two years ago, people familiar with the case said.

The Securities and Exchange Commission hadn't examined Madoff's books since he registered the unit with the agency in September 2006, two people said, declining to be identified because the reviews aren't public. The SEC tries to inspect advisers at least every five years and to scrutinize newly registered firms in their first year, former agency officials and securities lawyers said.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[AJuras]

Some have asked where is the money? My father, uncles and grandmother were all defrauded of all their money by Madoff and their own denial of that tell tale truth "if it seems too good to be true, it probably isn't." But way higher than average returns spread word of mouth throughout families. My family benefited from Madoff's returns for over 25 years. So where is the money, the investors already ate through it in the form of higher than able rates of returns slowly but steadily eating up the principle of the fund. And again, the tax payer will most likely be stuck with the bill. Because let's face it, the rich have great lawyers and 50 billion is a lot of money. The public has once again been duped. The SEC turned it's head for 25 years of inquiries. And now friends, it is time to pay the piper and he has blown out of town!

[PacificGatePost]

MADOFF IS NOT SO UNIQUE - OVERSIGHT MAY NOT BE ENOUGH

The corruption trench is deep and wide, much requires cleaning-up on Wall Street…
--
http://pacificgatepost.blogspot.com/2008/12/is-madoff-really-anomaly.html
--

[theworks]

The scheme is on all of us! The super rich know of the coming super depression. The Super Rich Game Plan (SRGP)?

Run for the hills with our money, before it runs out! The new how to get rich key word?

Liguidate, liguidate, liguidate!

Buy GOLD!

[tomas0808]

He overextended himself. Madoff missed his Payoff. That's all

[GerryS]

"How The SEC Missed Madoff's Ponzi Scheme"

the SEC did not care-

[Lupin77]

Now we know why he kept telling his clients not to talk about their investments with him. All this reminds me of that movie, "The Way We Live Now" the Trollope story about a similar scam artist.

[sposton]

I think Madoff ought to become a verb so that it can live in infamy! What do you think it ought to mean?

[Haditup2here]

"Punked" as in Amway for the "Rich" and "Arrogant"

[sposton]

As in, "Has was madoff by the greedy banksters"? I guess the correct pronunciation of the name is "made" + "off". I like it.

[AJuras]

It could be a verb. To be Madoffed. Meaning to be bamboozled by a scam that seemed too good to be true. EG-Amway.

[Sundialsvc4]

HOGWASH!

On half-a-dozen previous occasions, underlings at SEC did attempt to bring enforcement action. Each time, they were squelched.

Billions of dollars in "campaign contributions" to Senators, Congressmen (and Presidents, anyone??) greased the track. Big Deal.

"The buck stops somewhere." If you sit on the SEC now, or if you did at any time in the relevant past, (DARE I SUGGEST THIS?) "you are going to PRISON for a very, very long time."

Gasp!

What? LAW ENFORCEMENT?

Yup.

[dukeitout]

Just reading between the lines of the article, it appears Madoff has probably always been a crook going back to the 60's. A real genius of a confidence man.

[jennytaylia]

The headline is wrong; the word "missed" should be replaced with "ignored".

Where are good editors these days???

[sloreader]

Easy to miss things when you are not looking.

[jdwoman]

Just how aggressively has the SEC been doing its job under Bush? If it's like the EEOC, or the Labor Department, or the other regulatory agencies charged with monitoring abuses by business, I suspect the employees' instructions have been 'hands off'. Now the American people can see just what they got in 2000 and 2004 and how far reaching the consequences of that choice are going to be.

[Bruupo]

The SEC is the place where the Bush administration was actually honest about just how hands off they wanted to be, and none of these resulting SEC failures should surprise anyone given that rare bit of honesty.

They called it "voluntary regulation", Ole' Greenspan gave his approval (since recanted), and the SEC aggressively pursued this most asinine oxymoron as though it were viable policy.

Taxpayers pay for the entire civil court system, in addition to all of the market-specific regulatory agencies, in addition to the entire criminal court system- all of which serve to keep the blessed Free Market "free"- (or, better stated, -functioning-)

And yet in exchange for everything provided to Wall Street and Corporate America by the federal government (and state and local gov't's) they have lobbied endlessly to overturn regulation, paint government as the "bad guy", and in all ways create this cartoonishly incorrect image of the federal government as an incompetent, inefficient obstacle that played no role in their economic success. Aside from all of the corporate welfare which gives lie to those ridiculous notions, who runs those aircraft carriers that have been patrolling the world's oceans, again? Who has spent the last sixty some years or more making the US economic empire/ global trade/casino capitalism system possible? And who should feel patriotic paying a bit more for that?

[LINY516]

Three cheers for deregulation and laisse faire economics.
Who actually believes these concepts still work?

[jeffp26]

SEC examiners are dumber than people who believed that "you can never lose money in real estate."

And just as gullible too.

Seriously, how could they have missed this, especially since he was so high profile, and since they looked his firm over several times while he was pretending to make money for people.

[bmermaid]

When are people going to realize that the whole world's stock markets are a Ponzi scheme?

No-one hould be invested in the stock market unless their house & car is paid for AT LEAST. Your house is your best investment.

[jdwoman]

Not when the housing market goes in the tank, it isn't.

[bmermaid]

Yes, it is, because no matter what happens to everything else, you still have a place to live, and the housing market will go back up again eventually.

[planetjeffy]

If you look at investments over the long term, the stock market is much better than a house.

[vedder110]

A house is not an investment. In general houses depreciate unless you sink more money into upkeep. Only in bubbles and big population shifts do houses ever become any sort of investment, and even then they are a quite risky one.

[sposton]

Just like Rod Blagojevich represents a slight excess of what other politicians do, Madoff represents a slight excess of what banksters and financial pirates have done. I am sure there are many other Blagojeviches and Madoffs that the outgoing tide will expose. No matter how the media wants to personalize our systemic problems the reality is clear to those who wish to see it - our whole system is rotten to the core. The sooner we realize this the sooner we can clean it up and start anew.