Banksters admit to being ignorant and incompetent, but not to being dishonest.

Since 2009, the narcissistic economic Alchemist, Bernie Madoff, has been languishing in a US prison after being convicted of instigating one of the largest self-perpetuating 'investment/income opportunity' frauds to have been uncovered in recent years. Yet Madoff's extensive and expensive tragicomedy, which was paid for by its victims and acted out over many years on a global stage, was known about by countless insiders of the financial world who, significantly, all avoided (what they obviously recognised to be) another, pernicious Wall Street fairytale like the plague, but who chose to remain silent. Perhaps even more significantly, during 4 decades, the mainstream media continued to report Madoff's fction as fact, and completely failed to investigate, let alone expose, his clandestine criminal activities. 

In brief, although Madoff claimed to control 'the world's largest hedge fund' worth in excess of $50 billions, in total, he actually got his hands on $17.3 billions of which 58% has subsequently been recovered. Madoff relieved his victims of their cash by steadfastly pretending to have developed an infallible mathematical strategy for investing money on the stock exchange. In reality, Madoff was an absurd liar who had not been making any of the countless miraculous trades which he claimed. He was merely blinding the world with meaningless economic/mathematical hocus-pocus and declaring endless (imaginary) profits in order to attract more and more victims into the classic version of a closed-market swindle popularly known as a 'Ponzi scheme.' Even though this rapidly-expanding labyrinth of lies was fully-explained and reported to the US Securities and Exchange Commission on various occasions, no law enforcement agent ever applied common-sense and required that Madoff simply provide quantifiable evidence that his so-called 'Hedge Fund' had been generating any revenue other than that deriving unlawfully from his victims. 

Eventually, Madoff was gathering victims from all around the world and they were were being fed to him by various so-called 'financial advisers'  like those at 'Ivy Asset Management,' an Investment fund which is part of the 'Bank of New York Mellon.'

November 13th 2012, it was reported that 'Ivy Asset Management,' has finally agreed (only after being threatened with a series of lawsuits) to pay out $210 millions to settle claims resulting from its shameful supporting role in the Madoff tragicomedy. Although 'Ivy Asset Management' freely-admitted to receiving $40 millions of stolen funds (its own share of the $236 millions which it helped steal for Madoff 1998-2008), predictably, its attorneys claimed that no employee, or corporate officer, of Ivy who recklessly recommended clients (including 78 pension funds) to give their money to Madoff, had the slightest idea of what Madoff was really doing and, so far, no one at 'Ivy' has faced any criminal charge. 

In other words, banksters behind 'Ivy Asset Management' have been allowed to admit financial liability on the grounds of ignorance and incompetence rather than dishonesty; but (given the wider evidence) why should anyone believe this latest convenient chapter in the same, pernicious Wall Street fairytale?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20320510

Again, it is interesting to note that the mainstream media is still generally reporting this fiction as fact.

David Brear  (copyright 2012)