Even really smart people fell for Madoff scheme

[atticus]

Quote from reiser999:

Touché, but he is still one of many.
Remember LTCM.

Yeah, but LTCM was trading vol and off the run Treasuries, legitimate trading albeit w/too much gearing. Ask any option trader if a bull vertical is going to return 12% in a bear-market.

 

[WaveStrider]

Quote from ipatent:

The smart ones thought he was front running the MM.

The dumb ones thought he was a genius.

So the smart ones figured he was cheating, but it was ok as long as they were reaping the profits from it?

hmmm...

 

[reiser999]

When you look at people like Warren Buffett who has a masters in economics from Columbia and John Paulson who has an MBA from HBS, then compare it to all the other MBAs and economics majors and look at where they are now there is still a wide disparity among them. Even George Bush is the only president to have ever earned an MBA (from HBS too).

 

[Anaconda]

Quote from Ronin08:

plus the gross incompetent failure of the SEC to regulate the biggest most astonish and longest fraud in the history of the US should be unacceptable to anyone watching.

You call the messes ignorant & apathetic yet you are stupid and/or naive enough to think that SEC was just incompetent?

Wow!

 

[trendlover]

Quote from atticus:

Yeah, imagine Simons duped by a synthetic bull vertical spread strategy.

No. Imagine how nervous he is from that stratedgy when it becomes a bear market and the profit is still big. Now it could make other people question the fund, but before they would not.
So was he afraid the people not as smart like him can see something is wrong now, because it is more obvious in a bear market? So he tell Stony Brook to take the money out?
I am just imagining why.

 

[nitro]

After all the evidence is in, I agree with you! The SEC either looked the other way, or didn't care!

Quote from Ronin08:

The indifference and apathy displayed by the general public in light of the Bernie Madoff Fraud Case and the devastating damage to the victims plus the gross incompetent failure of the SEC to regulate the biggest most astonish and longest fraud in the history of the US should be unacceptable to anyone watching.

The public should at least demonstrate in masses in front of the Court House or in front of the SEC Building in loud disgust.

ALL Investors in Wall Street and online trading should at least stop trading for 24 hours in sympathy to the victims of this horrendous crime with no precedent and in protest to the gross government failure to protect the common long term investor.

The fact that this indifference to react in mass clearly shows the DECADENCE and Mediocrity that is prevalent in our Society.
Decadent societies are often prosperous but usually have severe social and economic inequalities like ours, to such degree that the upper class becomes either complacent or greedy, while the lower classes become hopeless ignorant and apathetic.

 

[nitro]

Interesting, isn't it?

I am dumbfounded.

Quote from Rearden Metal:

And now of course we see the gale of widespread support for piling strict new regulations upon the entire hedge fund industry.

Never mind the fact that the existing regulations already in place would have been more than sufficient to expose and imprison Madoff years ago, if only the SEC had bothered to lift a finger when presented with all the numerous red flags in this case.

I suppose they were too busy fucking with decent firms like Tuco to bother with such trivial issues as repeated warnings of multi-billion dollar fraud.

 

[nitro]

Quote from atticus:

Yeah, imagine Simons duped by a synthetic bull vertical spread strategy.

Incredible, isn't it?

Jim Simons is a hero of mine. That said, it is so easy to convince oneself that because you are really smart, and you know trading, that you are then qualified to give advice on anything related to trading. Let this be a warning to us all.

I don't know, let me find out, is a good answer.

 

[nitro]

Quote from trendlover:

Nitro, Simmons recommend the Madoff fund to Stony Brook in 1991. Then in 2000 Simmons is questioning the profit. He tells them to take all the money out, but they only take some money out of that fund. 1991 to 2000 was a bull market. So Simmons saw something wrong when a bear market happened and the fund was making alot of money still.
Did he go to the SEC to tell them what he sees? I am curious.

Yeah, he is a man and realized he made a mistake.

I doubt he told the SEC, but that is instinct, not fact.

 

[trendlover]

Quote from nitro:

Incredible, isn't it?

Jim Simons is a hero of mine. That said, it is so easy to convince oneself that because you are really smart, and you know trading, that you are then qualified to give advice on anything related to trading. Let this be a warning to us all.

I don't know, let me find out, is a good answer.

He gave a good advice to get out of that fund in 2000, but they did not listen to him. So he can be your hero.