|
||
Bernard Madoff and the Jews of Palm Beach
Bernard Madoff is a member in good standing of the Palm Beach Country Club, the exclusive Jewish club on the North End of the island. When I would talk to friends and acquaintances who were members, they often chatted about good old Bernie. The 70-year-old Madoff had been the chairman of the NASDAQ stock exchange. He was a brilliantly successful money manager who may well have handled the assets of a majority of the 300 members as well as that of those of a largely Jewish clientele across the eastern United States and a number of wealthy WASPS.
Bernard and Ruth Madoff bought their home on North Lake Way in 1967, and are among the most long standing members of the club. The Palm Beach Country Club is the ultimate symbol of the Jewish ascendency. Unlike the WASP clubs, to join you have to have made major charitable contributions. You also have to have made your fortune in clean ways. There are no garbage magnates, no slum lords. You have to be a person of character. And there was no one more revered and honored than Bernard Madoff.
Earlier this year I gave a talk at the club about my forthcoming book, Madness Under the Royal Palms. There were people in the room who are in my book and I avoided talking about them or anything that I thought might irritate or offend. I've been doing this sort of thing for years and I can take a few amusing anecdotes and strung them together into something that's not too painful and generally brings smiles if not laughter. But this afternoon there was dead silence. Nobody found anything I said amusing. In retrospect, I realize that these people had come to a bastion of anti-Semitism where Jews could not even enter the Breakers Hotel until 1965, and they had made the island theirs. And here I was to their minds mocking this world they had made their own. They found it profoundly unsettling.
People in Palm Beach sort themselves out into the group in which they belong based largely on how much money they have. Even the poorest of the islanders seem to have everything yet joy proves elusive, even for the country club members, because there is always someone richer or better socially connected. Joy is driving out of your 35,000-square-foot mansion in your Bentley and tooling up to the entrance of Mar-a-Lago for your fifteenth ball of the season, the valet parkers salivating at the chance to take your car and the prospect of a twenty-dollar tip. Joy is having a wife younger and thinner than any of the other wives at your table. Joy is subtly announced during dinner that your hedge fund scored 33 percent last year, while that of the arrogant son of a bitch across the table with the fat wife scored only 17 percent.
Those with the biggest financial gains generally had their money managed by Madoff. It was an honor having him handle your fortune. He didn't take just anybody. He turned down all kinds of people, and that made you want to give the man even more of your money. When he took your fortune, he told you that he would tell you nothing about how he achieved his returns. He was a god. He had the Midas touch.
Yesterday Madoff was arrested and accused of running what probably will prove the greatest Ponzi scheme in the history of the world. He may have dissipated as much as fifty billion dollars into nothing. For the elite Jewish world, it is a curse of almost biblical proportion. I was at a dinner party last night and one of the guests called on his cell phone a man whose money Madoff had managed. I know the man and he is a generous, kind person who recently gave away over a hundred million dollars. He said that both his company's retirement plan and his charitable foundation had been handled by Madoff. He was preparing to fly back to his Boston home to walk among the ruins. It's a story told scores of times yesterday. Bankruptcy. Despair.
There was one largely Jewish charity event last evening. "It was like the Titanic," one attendee said. "The ship was sinking, and people were crying, 'I lost this and that.' And everybody was drunk. The Titanic was going down and we might as well carry on."
There is a feeling of incredible shame, embarrassment, of exposure, as if their whole world has been exposed as jerry built. This evening the synagogues in Palm Beach will be full. And there will be men and women listening to the truths of a great and ancient faith as they have never listened before.
Around the Web
Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
Where is the 50 billion ? it sure is not in his pillow. Its probably in some stocks or bonds whose value have gone down the drain. For 30+ years this guy managed investors money and gave them back the return he promised. Were the investors a little bit oblivious about the risk associated with their investment ? I have lost 45% of the value of my 401k investment. I know people who have lost upto 75% value of their 401k and are forced to go back and join the work force at 65. This is a tough time for the market but Im not going out there and screaming that my 401k managers are running a ponzi scheme.
Maybe investors shouldn't have put all theirs eggs in one nest and this could have been averted. I feel sorry for the people who have lost their money but Im not too quick to call it a ponzi scheme. Maybe poor money management.
i don't think people are sitting and waiting for what you call the scheme. Madoff himself called it a ponzi scheme! He never actually had 50 billion dollars. The money would just go to the next person and keep passing down the line, it's not like he's hiding the money, it's gone! he never actually had it.
"There is a feeling of incredible shame, embarrassment, of exposure, as if their whole world has been exposed as jerry built. This evening the synagogues in Palm Beach will be full. And there will be men and women listening to the truths of a great and ancient faith as they have never listened before."
Thou Shalt Not Steal!
From Exodus 20.
There may be some good news for Madoff Victims
There is a special provision of the tax code that might allow some investors to write off all their loss against their 2008 income.
IRC 165(c)(2), a little used or understood deduction may help, but the investors, to claim the deduction in '08 must act now to establish their 'date of discovery'. For more information visit www.fraudrecovery.org. or ask your tax professional about IRC Section 165(c)(2).
To avoid being a victim of investment fraud…be prepared! The Association for Fraud Recovery and Prevention, a member organization dedicating to fighting consumer investment fraud, can show you how to protect yourself and your savings. Visit www.fraudrecovery.org.
Patriot11, I really enjoyed reading your six previous comments defending and applauding Holocaust denial. I had a feeling you were anti-Semitic but wouldn't accuse you of it based on this one comment about the Lappin Foundation, because it was possible you were just ignorant as opposed to willfully and actively anti-Jewish. Now I know.
Still, it's hard for me to believe that a person of normal intelligence would equate "Jewish" with "white" rather than with "Christian" or some other religion. The Lappin mission statement is about wanting to encourage Jewish youth to celebrate Jewish heritage, actively participate in the faith, and marry within the faith.
In case you never noticed, most religions discourage marrying out of the faith, and provide the means for non-members to convert to that faith. Some people convert to Judaism, often to marry a Jew. My father converted from Protestant to Catholic in order to marry my mother.
Now if "Jew" were equivalent to "white," wouldn't there be a way to convert from other races to white? But there aren't, are there? I sincerely hope this helps you begin to overcome your wrong-headed thinking.
What's more shameful are the charities that Madoff and peers fund. Here's an example, the mission statement for Lappin Foundation: www.rilcf.org/missionstatement.htm ; substitute word White for Jewish this statement would be deemed white supremacist or racist. Since the uncovering of Madoff scheme, a whole underworld is now exposed. It's funny how a club can freely be called Jewish and exclusive. If it was any other way it would be again considered racist. Why is that i wonder?
Pahpah25 is correct about Boca Raton: companies based in that city tended to be suspect/scams with shady characters involved (based on my experience in the securities industry).
Why can a club be called "Jewish?" Because the only reason it came into existence was as an alternative to the clubs with a "no Jews" policy. Are you really this ignorant of history? Right in the article above it mentions that the Breakers did not allow Jews until 1965. Try watching "Gentlemen's Agreement" with Gregory Peck.
My gay friend is in a gay bowling club. It was started because the existing bowling clubs did not welcome gay members. But the gay bowling club welcomes straight members, and there are a number of straights on the teams.
Your comment about changing "Jewish" to "white" is ignorant because the history of the two groups is hardly the same. I see this argument from right-wing morons about Black groups, "Why is there no White History month?" as if white history isn't the history that's been taught all along. As if whites have suffered the same persecution and prejudice under the domination of their own ruling majority. And, no, I am not Jewish; I'm just not whiny, resentful, self-obsessed, and bigoted like some people.
Is our country morally bankrupt?
Unfortunately, yes.
Just like 9/11 caused the gov't to do away with the INS and create Homeland Security - isnt' it time to dump the SEC, and try something else? I know it's only money, the guy didn't kill anyone (as far as we know,) but if they can ferret out Martha Stewart's petty crime, what took so long here?
Had it not been for the global recession this guy probably could have concealed his fraud for another decade or so...
Still trying to understand why the board of directors of a sizable foundation, or a retirement fund, or a bank lending against a security, would allow those funds to be invested by someone who does no reporting about how he invests their money. One word: greed.
There will always be crooks among us. They will quickly separate the fools from their money...
I USED TO LIVE IN BOCA RATON, PALM BEACH COUNTY. FLORIDA.........BOCA IS JOKINGLY REFERRED TO, BY LOCALS. AS THE 'WHITE CRIME'CAPITOL OF THE WORLD.......I WONDER HOW MANY OF MADOFFS SO -CALLED 'VICTIMS' [CRONIES] LIVED THERE IN THE MCCMANSIONS......PALM BEACH ISLAND IS JUST UP THE ROAD FROM BOCA..........
I noticed that the fact that Bernard Madoff was a big contributor to the Democrat Party and candidates was left out or either very well hidden. Had this been a Libertarian or a Republican, that part would be on the first line of this article. eg. Enron.
Otherwise this was a good article.
I have clients in London who also has so much money but no joy in their lives. They also had failing health. Money can not buy the essentials, good health and joy.............................
Yes, you are right, and what you say has been said since Plato. Unhappily, it is difficult to arise above the satisfaction of the animal desires which the advertising industry employs to sell their products, desires which most of the world uncritically accepts. But what is not advertised is that being human is to desire that which IS human -- beauty, knowledge, love, and honor. The young people who would have human desires are dismissed by these folks filled with the animals desires of cunning, sex, and winning (at all costs) are said to be simply "unproductive". Well, the well-fed driven folks in their gated gardens are punished by being forced to live with one another. The animals in these expensive zoos need not be deprived of their money so that they suffer. They suffer enough. Humans know that. Can anything be done to help these non-humans? No. Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" says it all.
Please write more.
Greed is beautawful.
I wish people would say "a thousand million" whenever they talk about a billion, to make it really sink in how much money is at stake. Madoff lost fifty thousand millions, guys!
Of all the things Americans do one way and the rest of the world does another, I think having "billion" mean thousand million and "trillion" mean thousand billion is one place where Americans are right and the rest of the world is wrong. If we counted in the Old World style, there would be no need for the word "billionaire", as no one person has accumulation a million million dollars yet, and knock wood no one ever does.
thousand -> million -> billion -> trillion is better than
thousand -> million -> thousand million -> trillion
Did you typo the last word?
And, riffing on NChooseK below, not all thousand-folds are created equal either.
A thousand times a dollar ain't as much as a thousand times a million dollars, etc. (It's actually a millionth as much.)
You can't spell "made-off" without Madoff!
A wolf among sheep.
good writing, good focus, excellent post and i wanna read more!
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
