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Ah, but his crimes were against Wall Street, not the proletariat^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H general public.

• asgard1024 13y ago
  Though it's a counterpoint to the argument that U.S. doesn't prosecute business decisions.
  • konstruktor 13y ago
    Madoff ran a Ponzi scheme and was convicted for fraud.
    • asgard1024 13y ago
      There are economists, like Steve Keen, who argued that subprime mortgage crisis and financial crisis in general was a Ponzi scheme. And I would say it's pretty obvious to most people that it essentially was. Madoff could say, in his defense, "I don't know this was a Ponzi scheme, I was just incompetent". At that's similar to what these bankers are saying. We don't accept it as a defense, though; we just prosecute it. The point is, there is no strict line between incompetence and fraud. Every fraud can claim incompetence. The unfortunate truth is that the U.S. indeed prosecutes _obviously_ bad business decisions. Just not in the cases where the fish is big enough. (The same is actually true in my country, Czech Republic.)
    • fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
      Eventually...