US scribes, legislators have always been bedazzled by swindlers

Shyam

Judging by recent events, it is perfectly obvious that most American legislators, journalists and regulators have always been just as bedazzled by the likes of (erstwhile billionaire swindler) Bernie Madoff, as any victims. Even now, in the light of the Madoff fiasco, it seems that the average American legislator, journalist and regulator still doesn't know how to recognise a camouflaged closed-market swindle or money circulation scheme, if it fell on his/her head.

Again, I should like to remind your readers that the essential identifying characteristic of all closed-market swindles, or money circulation schemes (no matter how heavily they are disguised), is that they have no significant, or sustainable, source of revenue other than their own temporarily-deluded participants. In simple terms, the victims of closed-market swindles can be defined as persons who (unbeknown to them) have been peddled infinite shares in what can only be their own finite money. Consequently, it is a relatively simple matter to prove beyond all reasonable doubt if any 'trading scheme' has been hiding a premeditated closed-market swindle. All that is required is to ignore the mystifying claims of the instigator(s) and the blissful ignorance of the participants, and establish exactly from whence any 'trading scheme's' intigator has actually derived the majority of the money which he/she claims can be divided in such away as to produce endless profits for participants.

Bernie Madoff (a previously-unremarkable lifeguard) persuaded his victims' to hand over their capital assets on the absurd pretext that he alone had access to a secret knowledge which enabled him always to return substantial profits for his clients (no matter what the overall trading conditions were) by investing their own money on the stock market. In reality, Bernie Madoff wasn't trading at all. His only real source of revenue was his victims, and this fact could have been easily discovered at any time by ignoring Madoff's own documents and the blissful ignorance of his victims and, instead, demanding that he supply independent proof that his alleged endlessly profitable transactions had really taken place. The other rather obvious question which the regulators failed to ask Mr. Madoff was:

Why, if you are such an infallible trader as you steadfastly claim, do you bother to invest on behalf of others in return for a small percentage of their profits, when you could invest for yourself and keep the lion's share?

David Brear (copyright 2010)