Monday, June 29, 2009

Madoff: Small fry


No other white collar case is comparable in terms of the scope, duration and enormity of the fraud and the degree of the betrayal. -- US District Court Judge Denny Chin on the Madoff scam


Oh, I'm pretty sure I can think of one.

Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison today, and also ordered to forfeit $170.1 billion, representing the total proceeds/property of the specific crimes he was sentenced for.

Madoff's a piker: The Social Security scam's take in 2008 alone was more than four times as much ($805 billion). It turned an annual profit of $180 billion.

The difference of degree between what Madoff did and what Social Security does is that Social Security is a much bigger con.

Differences of kind? The Social Security Ponzi hasn't fallen down and gone boom -- yet. Its victims aren't given the choice of buying in or begging off. And the culprits running the Social Security racket remain, for the moment, at large.

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