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Michael Nugent Moore's avatar

Madoff ran an "Affinity Fraud". That is, he created an illusion that he was letting his fellow Jews in on an inside deal. This has transpired among other trust groups, but nothing on this scale. Recall that Mr. Ponzi worked inside a very parochial Italian ghetto in Boston.

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C T's avatar

I’d say he didn’t start the scheme with the intention of really running it, and it became a monster with a life of its own. He probably started it because he was terribly arrogant and desperately needed to “seem” like a success (maybe impress his father in law, differentiate himself from that father he’d looked down upon… who knows)…. He posed like the incredible trader he was not. He was full of himself and a bit of a megalomaniac. At some point he probably even began believing his own bs and thinking he was someone … What is mind blowing is the SEC officials and the supposedly financially literate institutional investors that have him money. Sad sad sad story overall, although quite frankly I felt little sympathy for most of the victims interviewed. Surprising that the SEC, JP Morgan, Walter Noel, Sonia Kohn and all those others were never held responsible.

I guess greed has a very short memory.

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