Why Is Bernie Madoff In Jail?

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He committed a terrible act of fraud and it is good that he was punished but why is he jailed for running a ponzi scheme while Social Security is not onlystill open for business when it gives a much lower return, it is far larger in scale, it is common knowledge that benefits for youn gand even middle aged peoeplwill be cut even futher and it only recieves "contributions" through force (by having the IRS and the implied power confiscation, imprisonment andeven death that government posses).

Bernie Madoff frauded a tiny fraction of the US population into his scheme, he created great returns for those who got in early, he would have let you takeyour money out if you had asked him and before the fund collapsed and his crimes will not end up bankrupting the Country.

In contrast, Social Security takes money from every workers' income, there is no opting out of this scheme. It never gave a very good rate of return toeven its first set of "investors" (In every year, social security delivers less, in some cases substantially less money, compared to the alternatescenario where an employee invests 7.5% of his paycheck, with his boss match, in mutual funds for 30 years and then switching to bonds and other saferinvestes within a decade or so of retirement age. Even if that worker starts his or her working life during a stock market peak and retires right after a stockmarket bubble bursting, his or return has always been higher then social security's rate of return). You cannot cash out your share of this"fund" until you are very old or dissabled and the reason for this is that unlike a mutual fund, SS is no such fund. It is merely a box full ofIOU's, with the cash having been taken to wage wars and buy votes.

Finally, Bernie Madoff has harmed his clients and has further weakned trust, albeit very slightly in many cases, in financial markets and on the part ofinvestors. The damage pretty much stops at this point. On the other hand, Social Security, along with Medicare and othet New Deal and GreatSociety programssimply cannot handle the financial and Demographic pressures and will end up defaulting on its promises, defaulting on other promises or raising taxes to ratestah tae so high that it causes tax revenues to fall and the US will then have to eventually default on some or all of its obligations.


So, I ask, why is it is that Bernie Madoff's terrible act is being called one of the worst white collar crimes ever committed while a version that isexponentially worse in every way is being carried out before our very eyes by Uncle Sam? Where is the anger over the Ponzi scheme to end all Ponzi scheme thatwe ironically call Social Security?
 
Can't have a retirement plan for the country that doesn't allow the government to get their filthy hands on our money.
 
DaJoka004 wrote:
Can't have a retirement plan for the country that doesn't allow the government to get their filthy hands on our money.




You are fast becoming a more ruthless libertarian than I am. I know you have been educating yourself very rapidly on investing. Have you also been educatingyourself on libertarian leaning schools of Economic thought, particularly Austrian Economics?
 
i swear i could have typed the same exact thing if i thought even 1% of NT could properly digest it ...
 
word. social security is an insult to the financial sophistication of the average american...and shows the lack of faith the government has in the people to beresponsible for themselves. how much longer until people realize they've been duped?
 
What is ironic is how so many NTers consider themselves financial and business geniuses and/or they like to talk about how they "get their paperlong" and "keep their mind on their money" and "stack chips" but I guess something so banal as getting robbed by having about a sixthof one's income forcibly dumped into a ponzi scheme which is all but guaranteed to return nothing when we reach retirement age is not worth evenconsidering.


BTW, I am not throwing my fellow NTers under a bus, NT is a proxy for our country. community and age group so this phenomenon of being penny wise and dollarfoolish is pretty wide spread.
word. social security is an insult to the financial sophistication of the average american...and shows the lack of faith the government has in the people to be responsible for themselves. how much longer until people realize they've been duped?


The thing about social security is that the principle of forcing people to save for retirement is good in someways. My even more libertarian friends, areagainst that idea on principle but I do see some value in taking a small cut from people's paychecks and having it go into a fund for their retirement. Theproblem is that that money does not go into a fund. If that money did go into a basket of mutual fund during the first 30 years of one's working life andthan started to be transfered into safer assets in the last 15 to 20 years of one's working life then that would be a good system.

Trying to movie away from social security as a complete ponzi scheme to letting younger workers have a portion of their social security withdrawals placed indiversified, long term funds was the smartest idea that President George W Bush ever put forth so naturally it was shot down by misinformation and scaretactics and threats of grandmothers losing their SS checks and President Bush did not fight back whatsoever and the idea was killed.

The blatant theft that is our current SS system is not some distant, theoretical discuss nor is an issue that direct effects a small amount of people. It is anissue that affects everyone's paycheck and makes people our age poorer in the present with no reward to show for it in the future. If people do not get mador care about something like this, I am starting to believe that we, as a collective, deserve failure and misery.
 
Son I'm a business genius. Just don't care enough to post my thoughts, so I'll bookmark this thread and return after my final. Word to making a 10for an A.
 
When Social Security was implemented, it was meant to supplement retirees' pensions. However many people just don't save for retirement or didn'tplan well, so they are forced to live off social security.

Something has to be done about the SS system. Personally, I think that it should just be eradicated and the money put to better use somewhere.
 
damn liberals wanting to help people... Abolish all taxes
smh.gif


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Essential1 wrote:
damn liberals wanting to help people... Abolish all taxes
smh.gif


Did you read ANY of what I wrote?


Apparently you did and you are in way over your head it seems. You have already posted a gif, will you get serious in your next post and regurgitate some Obamaslogan about shared sacrifice and/or call all forms of spending "investments."

If you can pretend that you are President Obama and that my posts are teleprompters, you will see that I am not even against social security payments beingtaxed out of checks. The problem is what is happening to the money, it is known to everyone, that people in our age group will be lucky to get a few pennies onthe dollar for it back when we are old.

Instead of trying to help people, why couldn't we think about actually succeeding in helping people? We can start by allowing people to use at least putpart of their social security withdrawals from their paychecks into an actual pension fund or an array of diversified fund that invest with a very long termhorizon.

I say this because eventually everyone will grow old, even if some decide to stick to extreme partisanship and never grow up and it would be nice if you, meand everyone else who is born after 1975 would know that when money is taken from our paychecks in the name of our retirements that it not go into a systemthat can only be described as a ponzi scheme built upon extortion. regardless of your political leanings, I do not enjoy seeing you or anyone else get robbed.
 
you are literally comparing a government program to a guy who ripped people off, I do think SS needs to be changed somewhat but the comparison is insane..


The intention of SS is to help people after they have retired, not scam people....

and he didn't really allow people in and out of his ponzi scheme because no one knew. Yes that is the sense of a ponzi scheme so the lowers don't knowyou are pulling an okie doke. But the man literally ruined lives.
 
Originally Posted by Essential1

damn liberals wanting to help people... Abolish all taxes




Whaaa... ???

How many of you wait for tax returns? That's something else I shake my head at...

I'm no tax protester, even though I know what's up, but I'd rather have my money in my pocket and owe. At least then, I have the option of usingthat money to make more money over the course of a year...
 
I really have no clue about any of this, so excuse my ignorance. But, I just read an article that projects SS will run out by 2037. So, why is everyone stillforced into paying this? Is there any plans to revise SS so younger people will have any? Or are they just expecting us to use 401k's etc? I think what youare saying Rex, is that we should be allowed to use our money the way we want, and not be forced to pay into SS?
 
Essential1 wrote:
you are literally comparing a government program to a guy who ripped people off, I do think SS needs to be changed somewhat but the comparison is insane..


The intention of SS is to help people after they have retired, not scam people....

and he didn't really allow people in and out of his ponzi scheme because no one knew. Yes that is the sense of a ponzi scheme so the lowers don't know you are pulling an okie doke. But the man literally ruined lives.
I am comparing them and it is quite sane to compare them. What is insane is that Madoff comes out favorably, in comparison to Social Security.

Social Security forces you to put your money into what we all know is a ponzi scheme that will, through punishing taxation and/or defaults on variousobligations literally ruin hundreds of millions of lives. Social Security is far, far more damaging than even a 50 billion dollar ponzi scheme. Something istruly wrong when a crime like Madoff has and will look trivial in comparison.


I think what you are saying Rex, is that we should be allowed to use our money the way we want, and not be forced to pay into SS?


The libertarian in me and my micro economic education say that we should let younger workers keep what the currently have to pay into SS and do whatever theywant with it. However, the idea of SS security being a guaranteed minimum level of income for those too old to work is a good idea. Because of that, I am infavor of younger workers having an array of options from which to choose, index funds, bond funds, mutual funds and other investment that are diversified. Eventhe choice of funds would have to be diversified. Also, as a worker gets older, after say 25 or 30 years of working, there would be requirements that wouldmove more and more of that SS account money away from funds that are exposed to stock market volatility and into bond markets and and money markets have themoney that was built up over the first two or three decades in mutual and index funds be kept safe in even more stable investments than that worker had when hewas younger.

This way, returns can be maximized while still keeping things pretty safe and secure all of the way through one's working life and provide at minimum adecent income for retirees. Obviously people could supplement their SS the way they do now.
 
Originally Posted by Rexanglorum

Essential1 wrote:
you are literally comparing a government program to a guy who ripped people off, I do think SS needs to be changed somewhat but the comparison is insane..


The intention of SS is to help people after they have retired, not scam people....

and he didn't really allow people in and out of his ponzi scheme because no one knew. Yes that is the sense of a ponzi scheme so the lowers don't know you are pulling an okie doke. But the man literally ruined lives.
I am comparing them and it is quite sane to compare them. What is insane is that Madoff comes out favorably, in comparison to Social Security.

Social Security forces you to put your money into what we all know is a ponzi scheme that will, through punishing taxation and/or defaults on various obligations literally ruin hundreds of millions of lives. Social Security is far, far more damaging than even a 50 billion dollar ponzi scheme. Something is truly wrong when a crime like Madoff has and will look trivial in comparison.




You cant argue with Essential. He's a typical Liberal, he doesn't care about results, he only cares about the "Intent".


The Gov't doesn't let you out of SS or Medicare either.


Medicare is going to ruin how I practice medicine in the future. How do I know this? Because it is a main reason why health care is so costly in this country.
 
Originally Posted by Rexanglorum

Essential1 wrote:
you are literally comparing a government program to a guy who ripped people off, I do think SS needs to be changed somewhat but the comparison is insane..


The intention of SS is to help people after they have retired, not scam people....

and he didn't really allow people in and out of his ponzi scheme because no one knew. Yes that is the sense of a ponzi scheme so the lowers don't know you are pulling an okie doke. But the man literally ruined lives.
I am comparing them and it is quite sane to compare them. What is insane is that Madoff comes out favorably, in comparison to Social Security.

Social Security forces you to put your money into what we all know is a ponzi scheme that will, through punishing taxation and/or defaults on various obligations literally ruin hundreds of millions of lives. Social Security is far, far more damaging than even a 50 billion dollar ponzi scheme. Something is truly wrong when a crime like Madoff has and will look trivial in comparison.


you're over simplifying social security a bit, and leaning a bit favorably towards Madoff in this comparison, no?

the whole point of a Ponzi scheme is you don't know you're in one. And people couldn't have just taken their money and walked away before thescheme fell apart because had they, it wouldn't have been a Ponzi scheme or rather would have CAUSED it to fall apart. calling SS a worse Ponzi schemethan what Bernie did is a little unrealistic.

But I do see what you're getting at by making the comparison, I just don't think it fits as well as you're trying to make it seem.

And if I don't respond to any future posts until much later, forgive me, it's because I'm taking in a final in a little bit (on my study break)just wanted to weigh in.
 
I see where you (OP) are coming from, but the motives behind S.S. and Madoff are on opposite ends of the spectrum. Although some who invested in Madoff mademoney, his intent was to was to scam people. Obviously my views stand on the idea that the US Government is not trying to scam the population. That being said,I completely agree that an overhauling of the social security system is necessary for it to succeed in what it is supposed to be.

For the record I am a Democrat in a low financial bracket who has no problem paying taxes to help others, but I do get frustrated when tax money isn't usedeffectively.
 
Originally Posted by Rexanglorum


So, I ask, why is it is that Bernie Madoff's terrible act is being called one of the worst white collar crimes ever committed while a version that is exponentially worse in every way is being carried out before our very eyes by Uncle Sam? Where is the anger over the Ponzi scheme to end all Ponzi scheme that we ironically call Social Security?

Old people vote.
 
Yes, SS is crooked, but it doesn't leave the elderly with $0 in their account. Madoff took every cent.

How about you ask that question the the 90 year old guy who had to go back to work. Even better, ask the people who have killed themselves because everythingthey worked their whole life for was stolen by Madoff....

He CRUSHED peoples lives so that he could have more money than he could even spend. A greedy theif.

Do YOU think he should be jailed? If one of your elderly family member fell victims to this and had no way to survive or killed themselves because of this, Iguarantee your view would change.

To answer your question: Madoff isn't the government. That's why.
 
the whole point of a Ponzi scheme is you don't know you're in one. And people couldn't have just taken their money and walked away before the scheme fell apart because had they, it wouldn't have been a Ponzi scheme or rather would have CAUSED it to fall apart. calling SS a worse Ponzi scheme than what Bernie did is a little unrealistic.

By that theory this makes SS/Medicare worse because you have NO CHOICE, you cant take your money out.



For the record I am a Democrat in a low financial bracket who has no problem paying taxes to help others, but I do get frustrated when tax money isn't used effectively.


Does it bother you that success will be punished?
 
Originally Posted by Fede DPT





For the record I am a Democrat in a low financial bracket who has no problem paying taxes to help others, but I do get frustrated when tax money isn't used effectively.


Does it bother you that success will be punished?




Explain what you mean by "punished" and I will be more comfortable answering.
 
Originally Posted by tree4twenty

Yes, SS is crooked, but it doesn't leave the elderly with $0 in their account. Madoff took every cent.

How about you ask that question the the 90 year old guy who had to go back to work. Even better, ask the people who have killed themselves because everything they worked their whole life for was stolen by Madoff....

He CRUSHED peoples lives so that he could have more money than he could even spend. A greedy theif.

Do YOU think he should be jailed? If one of your elderly family member fell victims to this and had no way to survive or killed themselves because of this, I guarantee your view would change.

To answer your question: Madoff isn't the government. That's why.
Chances are when you get to the age where you can receive SS you'll get $0. Madoff isn't the government, but do you honestly think thathis scheme would have got as big as it was with out the help of complicit government officials?
 
Originally Posted by General Johnson

Originally Posted by Essential1

damn liberals wanting to help people... Abolish all taxes




Whaaa... ???

How many of you wait for tax returns? That's something else I shake my head at...

I'm no tax protester, even though I know what's up, but I'd rather have my money in my pocket and owe. At least then, I have the option of using that money to make more money over the course of a year...
You have to understand though, The country is using our money to fund the irresponsible actions of other countries and lazy $%% people. Where asto the majority of us who are dumping 2-300 bucks month into this crap will not see a return worth mentioning.
 
the whole point of a Ponzi scheme is you don't know you're in one. And people couldn't have just taken their money and walked away before the scheme fell apart because had they, it wouldn't have been a Ponzi scheme or rather would have CAUSED it to fall apart. calling SS a worse Ponzi scheme than what Bernie did is a little unrealistic.

And if I don't respond to any future posts until much later, forgive me, it's because I'm taking in a final in a little bit (on my study break) just wanted to weigh in.


That is what is so bad about Social Security, they do not even have to use fraud, they have the power of government's monopoly on force and simply forceyou to pay into a set up where you know you will get little or none of your money back when you are over 65.

BTW, good luck on your final.


For the record I am a Democrat in a low financial bracket who has no problem paying taxes to help others, but I do get frustrated when tax money isn't used effectively.


I admire your level of altruism but you might want to consider the fact that the bigger and more powerful the government becomes, the greater the incentivethat exists for lobbying, buying of favors and influence and other forms of corruption. When government gets the power to put you out of business on the onehand and the power to put your competitors out of business on the other, there is reason why you will so something like buy a congressmen a house and expecthim to sponsor anti-competitive legislation in your favor or have the government give your firm an overvalued contract or something like that.

If you want to see money successfully transfered to the less fortunate do three things. Give to charity and encourage others to do so, get some governmentprograms moved to the State and Local level in a and also give more assistance in the form of direct cash payments through a progressive negative income tax.All of those things help to decentralize benevolence and get a bigger share of tax and charitable dollars to those people for whom it was intended in the firstplace.


Old people vote.


Amen to that. My friend was reviewing for a final and he was asking me some questions that were in his study guide and one was able medicare and how it wasfunded. It asked "What lesson could be learned from the repealing of the 1988 Medicare Act (in 1989, the 1988 act, which shifted some of the fundingburden for medicare to seniors, from tax payers, was repealed)?"

My response was the same as your's.
 
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