The Real Devil Made Off

So, the devil finally made off with his soul. Wealthy investors conned into the largest ponzi scheme in history will dance on the grave of Bernie Madoff, poster boy for greed in the financial collapse. Old Bernie wasn’t just the greatest grifter of modern times, he was also the most convenient scapegoat ever conceived in a time when the financial world fully came off the rails.

This isn’t a sympathetic portrait of a sociopath. Bernie had his punishment coming to him, though I’ll stop short of reveling in the death of his children. One died by suicide, two years to the date of his arrest. The other by cancer. No matter how egregious the sins of the father, I wish that on no one.

Sadly, my guess is the media will fail to characterize the Madoff scandal for what it was: Wall Street’s finest head fake.

Instead, the focus will be on his spectacular fall from grace and serve as a cautionary tale of greed, hubris and impossible gains. Bernie’s exploits were the subject of incredulity among savvy investors for years before he was ultimately exposed for his inability to meet the liquidity demands of his investors during the financial crisis. Attempts to turn him in to regulators were met with shrugs as early as 2000 when the SEC was presented with claims of fraud, and in 2001 when stories began to circulate about the improbability of Madoff’s returns.

Attempts to replicate the success of his returns all failed. They were inexplicable because, as we now know, they weren’t real. But regulators and investors turned a blind eye because it was easier to look away from him than look into him.

And so, it all came crashing down.

I call it Wall Street’s finest head fake because Bernie’s fall from grace couldn’t have happened at a better time. Wealthy old people and charities, a special target of Bernie’s because of how charitable foundations are structured, were trotted out in media pieces. Celebrities, titans of business and others gave the story some star power, and all were paraded in front of the cameras to talk about Bernie’s grand betrayal. The media swooned over the story of a financier turned conman who stole from old people and foundations.

Bernie’s fall happened in 2008. At the time, investment banks were failing and the economy was coming off the rails. Americans began to lose jobs, homes and savings at a stunning rate. Many Americans have yet to recover, and perhaps never will.

People would take to the streets in the years following the crisis. Angry protests erupted in cities across the country, and pundits and politicians joined the chorus of outraged citizens calling for the heads of bankers. Down with Goldman! Down with JP Morgan! Down with the lot of them that brought the world crashing down on Main Street!

The new Obama administration rode to the rescue of Americans promising to be tough on Wall Street and challenge the culture of corruption. Surely, he wouldn’t let the bastards get away with crippling middle America.

And so, we waited.

Kareem Serageldin is now infamously known as the only person to be sentenced to prison for misdeeds during the financial crisis. Who is Kareem Serageldin? Who gives a shit?

Okay. Serageldin was a cog in the wheel, just some dude from Credit Suisse. A hapless dickhead who wound up paying the price for rampant criminality and corruption that was the norm on Wall Street. The story isn’t entirely true, by the way. In fact, it gets better.

In the wake of the crisis, an agency was established to root out bad behavior and help bring investigations to bear. (Here’s the fun part.) The agency is called the Special Investigator General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or SIGTARP. This was the Eliot Ness-style program the government created to hunt down criminals and bring them to justice for fucking America in the ass. Since its creation, SIGTARP has participated in investigations into the banks below and, in some cases, (wait for it) actually succeeded in putting bankers behind bars.

• Wilmington Trust

• General Motors (Yes, the banking division)

• Sonoma Valley Bank

• United Commercial Bank

• Goldman Sachs

• Bank of the Commonwealth

• Morgan Stanley

• Royal Bank of Scotland

• Tier One Bank

• SunTrust

• Colonial Bank

Guess which ones employed people who actually went to jail and which ones only had to pay fines?

Prison Sentences

• Wilmington Trust

• Sonoma Valley Bank

• United Commercial Bank

• Bank of the Commonwealth

• Tier One Bank

• Colonial Bank

Fines Only

• General Motors

• Goldman Sachs

• Morgan Stanley

• Royal Bank of Scotland

• SunTrust

Bet you guessed that already. Complete and utter fucking bullshit, as usual.

So, yeah. Bernie Madoff is dead. Boo-fucking-hoo. The media will once again dance on his grave, spike the football and recount the story of how he was brought to justice and got what he deserved.

All the while, the fucknuggets at GM, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, RBS and SunTrust will chortle like rich people do in movies, order another martini and toast to the memory of their friend Bernie Madoff, the greatest head fake in Wall Street history.