I don’t think that I ever heard Michael Jackson sing.  I loved the music of the sixties when I was growing up but then never paid much attention, so a lot of "popular culture" passed me by.  However, the outpouring of emotion is extraordinary and reminds me of the emotion that followed the death of Princess Diana.  It’s basically meaningless.  And all the stories about Jackson are driving the real news off the front page. 

As for his death, it seems clear that his doctor (a cardiologist who has been in all kinds of trouble and is now AWOL) gave him one too many injections of demerol.  End of mystery.  But beginning of murder trial?  This should keep the tabloids busy for ever.

Iran, climate change, bombings in Iraq, deaths in Afghanistan, health care, Darfur?  Boring, boring, boring! Old news!  Who cares?  

As one of Madoff’s victims, I was glad to read the following just now:

June 26 (Bloomberg) — Bernard Madoff’s apartment in Manhattan and his houses in Palm Beach, Florida, and in Montauk on the east end of New York’s Long Island will be sold by U.S. marshals, according to a ruling by Denny Chin, the U.S. District Court judge in charge of Madoff’s criminal case.

Madoff approved an agreement with prosecutors and he and his wife Ruth agreed to sell the properties to raise money to pay back victims of his $65 billion Ponzi scheme, the biggest in history. The orders don’t require Ruth Madoff to leave the couple’s apartment at 133 East 64th Street before the sale. Bernard Madoff now resides in a federal jail in Manhattan.

Madoff will also sell Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen automobiles, boats and trailers by Chin’s order. Also to be sold are his $39,000 Steinway piano and $65,000 worth of silverware, now located in the Manhattan apartment.

Ruthie is still trying to hang onto a large chunk of change but it is very satisfying to learn that she will start to see some real changes in her life pretty soon.

Here is a complete list of the charges against Madoff:

Count One: Securities Fraud
Maximum penalty: 20 years in prison, fine of the greatest of $5 million or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense, and restitution.

Count Two: Investment Adviser Fraud
Maximum penalty: 5 years in prison, fine of the greatest of $10,000 or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense, and restitution.

Count Three: Mail Fraud
Maximum penalty: 20 years in prison, fine of the greatest of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense, and restitution.

Count Four: Wire Fraud
Maximum penalty: 20 years in prison, fine of the greatest of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense, and restitution.

Count Five: International Money Laundering To Promote Specified Unlawful Activity
Maximum penalty: 20 years in prison, fine of the greatest of $500,000 or twice the value of the monetary instruments or funds involved, or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense, and restitution.

Count Six: International Money Laundering To Conceal And Disguise The Proceeds Of Specified Unlawful Activity
Maximum penalty: 20 years in prison, fine of the greatest of $500,000 or twice the value of the monetary instruments or funds involved or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense, and restitution.

Count Seven: Money Laundering
Maximum penalty: 10 years in prison, fine of the greatest of $250,000 or twice the gross grain or loss from the offense, and restitution.

Count Eight: False Statements
Maximum penalty: 5 years in prison, fine of the greatest of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense, and restitution.

Count Nine: Perjury
Maximum penalty: 5 years in prison, fine of the greatest of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense, and restitution.

Count 10: Making A False Filing With The Securities and Exchange Commission
Maximum Penalty: 20 years in prison, fine of the greatest of $5 million or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense, and restitution.

Count 11: Theft From An Employee Benefit Plan Maximum Penalty: 5 years in prison, fine of the greatest of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense, and restitution.

There’s a huge amount of material available on the web about co-conspirators.  Just go to Google News and read about COHMAD and the involvement of Picower, Merkin and Chais.  For example (from the suit filed against COHMAD =Cohen+Madoff company):

During the entire Madoff Ponzi scheme, certain investors requested and received
distributions of the “profits” listed for their accounts, although those “profits” were in fact
fictitious.  As such, in a variety of instances, a customer of BLMIS continued receiving
statements showing that he or she or it had a significant amount of money under management, despite the fact that the customer had already withdrawn more money than the customer had ever deposited.  Put another way, there were customers that withdrew more money than they had deposited, on the mistaken belief that they had a positive account balance because statements rendered by BLMIS continually included the accumulating fictitious profits.

69. Cohmad and the Cohmad Representatives were not deceived by the BLMIS (Bernard L Madoff Investment Services) customer statements or the fictitious profits.  In fact, Cohmad and BLMIS set up a database whereby Cohmad monitored the actual cash value of a BLMIS customer’s account without considering the fictitious profits.  This database was developed by a BLMIS employee, and the technical support was provided by BLMIS.

The fact that Cohmad and Cohmad Representatives were compensated based on actual money invested in the BLMIS accounts of customers referred by them rather than by the total of the amount invested and fictitious profits shown on the BLMIS statements, indicates that Cohmad and the Cohmad Representatives had actual knowledge of the Ponzi scheme.

As you all know, I’m a victim of the Madoff scam.  I find Ruth’s comments amazing.  She and her husband seem to have made their life on a different planet.  I think their behavior qualifies them as true psychopaths.

Definition: a person suffering from chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behavior.

Just as soon as Bernie is locked up, I hope they come for his sons and his wife.

And, as for being a greedy victim, I invested in the mid 90’s as a middle-class woman who’d made a bit of money.  I was advised to invest by someone of the highest integrity, a businessman who has lost many times more than I did.  I was assured that Madoff was a market maker, with a split-strike strategy, who had been head of NASDAQ and was SIPC-insured.  OK.  I have no idea what market maker and split-strike mean but, heck, I’m not a broker.  My returns were 8 to 10% per year when others were making far more in the market and in hedge funds.   I had some other money with a standard broker; some months he made more than Madoff for me, some months he made less.  But Madoff’s returns were not out of whack with those of my regular broker until the last couple of months prior to Dec. 11 when the scandal broke. 

I am thankful that I did not put all my eggs in one basket and that’s what has saved the day for me.  But greedy?  I don’t think so.  

I think one aspect of the problem is that so few women get enough exercise.  Exercise, outside, tones the muscles, quiets the mind, gives one a healthy glow and makes one feel good about oneself.  YOU know that, of course.  And then, how many women eat a healthy diet?  Since I turned sixty, I’ve upped the exercise and cut my consumption of meat to about once a month. I’ve replaced snacking on Hershey kisses with oatmeal for breakfast and started eating more nuts (unsalted, with no added fat).  To my surprise, the more I eat like a chimp in the wild, the better I feel.  As Michael Pollan says, "Eat food, mostly plants, not too much."

I wish we could be satisfied with the looks our genes have given us.  Unfortunately, many feel that they are judged exclusively in terms of their looks and that they have to spend time, energy and money on improving them or maintaining them. 

I know some beautiful women and some women who were born with or developed, as a result of cancer therapies, looks that might make some people cringe.  The latter are, however, among my dearest friends, being talented, warm-hearted, funny, kind, generous, and unselfish. 

One of my friends who is not aging well has become infinitely more beautiful in my eyes as a result of some extraordinarily kind gestures that she has made towards others.

So, you can keep your raised faces, liposuctioned thighs, and surgically diminished noses.  I’ll take my homely friends, warts and all!

I am, heaven knows, no great beauty but - and this is truly surprising to me - at almost 62, I feel FAR MORE beautiful than I did at 21.  The difference is due entirely to self-confidence.  So, maybe, women who are contemplating plastic surgery need lessons in self-confidence more than anything else (and such lessons are cheaper than surgery,entirely non-invasive and without risk of secondary infection!).

Yes, Madoff is Jewish and the majority of his victims are Jewish.  They trusted him because it never occurred to them that he (such a nice man with such a nice wife and sons!!) would swindle them.  He stole from Jewish charities too, many of which supported non-Jewish as well as Jewish causes. 

We entrusted him with some (only some, fortunately) of our savings because my husband asked a very wealthy (Jewish) acquaintance what we should do with some of our savings.  Friend said, "We have our money invested in a small mutual fund but, even though you have only a small amount to invest, the man who runs the fund says that he’ll let you in as a favor to me."  Friend and his family and all their close friends had all or almost all their money with Madoff and all lost all of it.  So we can’t really blame him for our misfortune, can we?

Hey, Mary, I’m not a guy (as most readers realize).  I always wanted to be called "Sam" instead of my given name so I enjoy being the androgynous Sam on this site.

My late parents did things to be proud of and things not to be proud of.  Nobody is perfect and they were far from perfect.  They did, however, communicate some important lessons to me, which have stood me in good stead.  My maternal grandparents died because they tried to hang on to material things (instead of fleeing, penniless, as my mother did, they stayed behind, hoping to use their wealth to save their lives - so the Nazis took their wealth and then took and murdered them).

Thus, I was taught from an early age that material things are much less valuable than lives and health.  I was also taught that, if I had to go to the end of the earth with just a suitcase, I should not dispair but should start, at the bottom of the ladder, to climb the ladder again.  These are good lessons to learn and many still learn them today - just not your average American. 

Thanks for all your kind words.