Watching CNBCs special on old Bernies heist made me think of a major question I haven't seen or heard an answer for.

How did Bernie Madoff spend 50 billion dollars?

Or more appropriately, where did all that money go?

Most people can have a grasp on spending a million dollars. Its really not that difficult in todays time, but can you imagine spending 100 million or an insane amount of money such as 1 billion?

Just take into consideration the logistics of spending that kind of money, and what just 1/100th of that kind of money could buy.

Having no idea what the man owns or in this case... owned. here are some ideas that could fit within 500 million dollars.

Ill start with a wealthy lifestyle such as houses, cars, art, vacations and of course your personal jet airplane and luxury yacht. Lets say 8 or 9 large estates. On average a cool 25 mill. each. So housing- 200 million. The fanciest cars a few million each. Lets say a high estimate of 25 million. Throw in 40-50 million in fine art. Scrape up a scroungy 150 million for the most expensive luxury yachts and another 50 mill on the personal jetliner.

aaahhh...so lets see what we have here....200+25+50+150+50= (cue jeopardy theme...)...a whopping 475 million....wait that cant be right!....thats not even 1/100th of the total estimate amount of money the man stole!.

..what the hell happened to the rest of the $49,525,000,000?



I just tried to come up with the most luxurious, most expensive things I could think of and could only add up to 475 million! OK. maybe I left out the hookers and drugs and lush extravagant parties...throw in another 15 million. Well theres the straw that broke the camels back...or wait I guess not, cuz theres still over 49.5 Billion dollars THAT NEED TO BE ACCOUNTED FOR!!!

Im sure the nut job at least took a stab at the stock market, so feel free to chop another 5 billion off the top for being a real go getter but not a having a clue of what he was doing (apparently). Anything after that should be considered criminally insane....oh wait

So wheres the conspiracy (ahem... money?) Oh, I dont know. Id say look at his friends, family, dog, cat, pet fish, favorite sock puppet "palmela handerson" that he keeps under his pilow...... or maybe, just maybe the world leaders that all share that same bed!....and sock???...eeewwww. (too far,... I know, but Ill tell you what. I wouldn't put it past any of them...ANY ) Specifically, the same world leaders that he probably rubs elbows with at those lavish hooker parties...oh ya where was the IRS in all of this? hhhmmm.....did he ever pay taxes? did he not have to comply witrh that dictionary of a tax code that America devotedly follows? Who the hell did his taxes? No red flags at all?

So, 50 billion huh? All gone you say.... Well blow me down! We have in front of our eyes witnessed a miracle. A vanishing act of more money than some complete cities, whole states and even some entire nations..gone, before our very eyes! Who needs Las vegas!? We got Bernie Madoff...

Probably spent millions monthly over long periods of time. Plus keep in mind he probably bought friends massively expensive things. Lots of payoffs and other things I assume. In other words, massive massive greed.

Who says he spent it all?

There are many ways to make money disappear.

Many over seas banks will let you open an account that cannot be traced back to you if you deposit enough money.

Thats one good example.


Then again, like another poster said, he didn't keep near that much.

I am sitting here trying to find a response...I sat for 15 minutes trying to figure out what you could do with 50 BILLION, holy f c u k !!!

There are so many things I want to say, but I just sit here and cry. You have no idea how utterly mad this makes me. How many people that could have fed, how many people could have had heath care...

For 50 Billion USD you could buy
...250,000 houses at $200,000 each
...500,000 houses at $100,000 each
...two million five hundred thousand cars at $20,000 each

I can do math, I guess the IRS can't...

We need to ask more questions, what the hell can you possibly NEED with that much money? Where is the IRS? There is no way in hell that this guy stole 50 Billion without help from the FED or IRS. What the ^%$#%^% is going on people...common sense proof that something is seriously FUBAR.

ok. i really havnt paid the most attention to the story.

was the size of the ponzi scheme 50 billion or was the amount of money that did not get returned to investors 50 billion?

From what I have heard hundreds if not thousands of investors did not get their funds back. i thought that total amount came to 50 billion.

if not, obviously the numbers in my op arent correct. either way, in the end I could imagine there are multiple billions gone from what this guy finegled and took for himself...

anyone know?

taking into consideration the scheme itself, I would look at those that "got their money back"..

who were the major private party investors?

think they had no idea what was going on?

please...you dont hand over millions by taking someones word on it.

guaranteed, theres more to it than 1 man dooping everyone.

maybe fund managers andcharitable trusts could have been fooled, but if I were the investigators I would definitely be looking at the private party funds that entered the scheme. And there still s

but im sure the fish and the dog and the cat will all be the focal point of the investigation. gotta get paid for somethin eh?

Aside from the seriousness of what really went on with Bernie and the billions, try to imagine what the OP was considering. Spending that kind of money.

Crap, it boogles the mind. I would say most of us don't live anywhere near the million dollar mark, at least I don't and can't imagine.

I might start of with an island somewhere with a staff and i would need the jet to get there and back... bet one can get an island cheap these days.

I would guess his family and associates are watched for their spending habits these days....

Madoff threw the $50 Billion number out himself. And investigation shows the number to be $15-20 Billion.

At least a Billion has been recovered from immediately accessible assets and financial instruments with something like 5-6 Billion more to be recovered from feeder funds and other sources, so far.

One has to recall that if Madoff was acting totally above board investing on Wall Street, his clients losses from 2007 to December 2008 when he was turned in, would have been something like 40%.

But the money never really was invested and those who cashed out early did well. Much of the money dissipated on transaction fees and bonuses.

There are the inevitable rumours, as he was Jewish, that money was siphoned to Israel, Mossad, etc. No evidence of this and ironically, an equal opportunity crook, the ones who took the hardest hits were often Jews themselves.

It's thought Madoff was acting as a front, in part, for Mob money laundering.
His lack of proper bookkeeping might imply large cash transactions rolled into the mix.

The story will come out as his confederates and associates are investigated and charged. Watch for what comes out of the current plea bargaining of Madoff right hand man, Frank DiPascali. He will be naming names and the whole story will start unraveling.


Mike









[edit on 15-6-2009 by mmiichael]

Originally posted by open_eyeballs
i know he screwed over some jewish trust funds and such so its not like hes out to enrich the overall jewish population..it doesnt seem he had a conscience when it came to screwing anyone.

his list of bilked investors included hedge funds, banks, synagogues, family trusts, individuals, businesses, pension funds, universities etc. He didn't discriminate when it came to the type of investor. what he did do is refuse money from anyone who might question his methods. Those questions would lead to his exposure so he stuck to those he knew would be happy to make their money whilst ignorant to how they made their money.

Originally posted by open_eyeballs
i think it would be a consideration to look at some of his closer family friends...it would be interesting to know if he had any close ties with jewish leaders and/or american jewish politicians...

His closes faimly friends were his biggest victims. Men who he called surrogate fathers, men who treated him as a son. He took more from them than anyone else. His last big score was from Carl Shapiro who was one of his first investors. Some say Carl was in on the game but, if he was, why would he give Madoff more money when it was beyond recovery.

I recall a Jersey politician as being included in the bilked list as well. Not sure if that gives him close ties to anyone in politics.

Originally posted by open_eyeballs
i would love to see a timeline of some of the transactions, and their payouts...kinda like....

never going to happen. Apparently, there isn't much in the way of client records.

Originally posted by open_eyeballs
"hey bro, come invest with me for a year and I will get you a return of 100%..then you kick me back some of that green..."...dont ask...dont tell...

If the rumors of mafia involvement are true, he wasn't in a position to bring anyone else in and, besides, up until the hedge funds started asking for their money, he didn't need to bring in new investors. His track record, his secrecy, his impossible to enter without great credentials, his crazy rules, his self made legend all added up to a guy people were begging to take on. He didn't need to promise anyone anything.