Tuesday, March 10, 2009
The Last Laugh
Posted By Eric S. Peterson on March 10, 2009, 6:08 PM
It's about goddamn time a white collar got the punishment of a blue collar criminal. Now the word is out that Bernie Madoff, the Wall Street whiz who orchestrated a $68 billion ponzi scheme will be facing up to 150 years in jail.
Finally that sounds about right. Yet I'm gotta knock on wood just yet, as the hammer of justic has not yet fallen. Of course when the final verdict comes down it will be less than 150 years, but anything less than decades in jail will mean a disgusting miscarriage of justice.
A good Washington Post writer drew this comparison that at last America may be waking up from the era of the con-artist. But now that the grass has been beat, the snakes are slithering out. Ponzi masterminds are being uncovered everywhere including this one in Idaho Falls. And with the subprime crisis finally showing us how not to build a market out of a house of cards, it may just be that we as a society are finally picking up on the joke.
That something too good to be true, probably is and that the guy selling you the free lunch is as big a crook and a sick-joker as anyone else holding a gun or knocking over a bank. Maybe worse. At least with an armed robber there's less self-deception on the part of the criminal. They know they're not kidding anyone--including themselves--into believing that they are just another persecuted businessman.
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