Why not bail out the Madoff victims?

Posted Mar 18th 2009 3:00PM by Zac Bissonnette
Filed under: Law, Scandals

Bruce Watson recently reported on DailyFinance that Bernie Madoff's victims may be eligible for theft-loss deductions of as much as 95% of their losses over five years.

There's debate about whether that's fair. Some think it's too much, some say not enough, but here's what I say: Why not take a big pile of the TARP money and use it to make Madoff's victims whole?

I know: That's ridiculous, unprecedented and un-American, but do we really have any principle left to stand on as a reason for opposing such a bailout?

Think about: We're extending hundreds of billions in taxpayer money to bailout huge financial institutions that made loans on crappy properties to people with no income and no credit. That's just stupid, and they deserve what they got: And some of the TARP money is being used to pay bonuses to the people who made these decisions!

In the case of the Madoff victims, you can argue that they were naive and didn't conduct proper due diligence but you have to give them credit. At least they got screwed by one of the great sociopaths of all time, a man with all the imputed credibility that comes with having been a chairman of the National Association of Securities Dealers.

So here's what I say: Take $15 billion of TARP money and hand it out to the innocent people and foundations who lost money to Madoff. Make Elie Wiesel whole, and relieve the financial woes of all the great Jewish charities that were harmed by Madoff.

If there's money to pay bonuses to AIG, there should be money for that too.

Tags: Bailout, Madoff, Scams

Print this

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

3-18-2009 @ 3:25PM

jkforders said...

Since when do taxpayers guarantee people's investments? Or guarantee that nobody will ever be defrauded? If investors can "claw back" their investments from other investors who profitted from the Ponzi scheme, or from Madoff and his extended family, I'm all for that.

This whole "bailout fever" has gotten way out of control. AIG employees shouldn't be receiving multimillion dollar bonuses, and Madoff victims shouldn't be getting any kind of taxpayer bailout.

People get defrauded every day. Why is this particular community special? Is it because they are mostly rich?

3-18-2009 @ 4:56PM

thedude said...

I have read so many stories about Madoff "victims" and the common thread seems to be that "they lost everything"

Well the facts are that these investors failed the two most basic principles in life
A- Don't put all your eggs in one basket ie; don't invest all your money in one place
B- If it sounds too good to be true it probably is

These people allowed their greed to make the decisions and as such they got what they deserved, it is an investors job to research any one handling their money as well as any place their money goes

People nowadays spend more time choosing eggs in the market than they do deciding who will handle their nest egg.

So I say. No No Definitely No ! Do not bail them out they have learned their lesson the hard way but I should not have to pay for their mistakes,the auto industry and big banking is bad enough thank you very much.

Also, execute Madoff violently, publicly and quickly as a lesson to all who follow.

3-18-2009 @ 5:51PM

michael gross said...

No public money for private bailouts...it's unconstitutional...I got scammed for 200 bucks in high school; I want a bailout--shouldn't I be eligible? Properly invested, that should be about 200,000 by now.

3-18-2009 @ 5:48PM

TX CHL Instructor said...

The whole point (IIRC) of the AIG bailout was that they were "too big to fail". In which case, the price for accepting government bailout money should have been to be divided into enough different pieces that they would individually be small enough to fail. Since the government is now owner of 80% of AIG, it should be splitting up the company and selling the tiny pieces.

Same with GM.

You're right, though. If we're stupid enough to prop up failed business modules, maybe we should prop up stupid investors. We will be guaranteed to get more of both.
--
www.chl-tx.com