Too Good to Be True: The Rise and Fall of Bernie Madoff by Erin Arvedlund

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By Erin Arvedlund

Regardless of all of the headlines approximately Bernard Madoff, who pleaded accountable to operating a $65 billion Ponzi scheme, he's nonetheless shrouded in secret. Why (and while) did he flip his valid enterprise right into a significant fraud? How did he idiot such a lot of clever traders for therefore lengthy? Who between his relations and staff knew the reality? the simplest individual to reply to those questions—and inform the total tale of Madoff's upward push and fall—is Erin Arvedlund. In early 2001, she was once suspicious of the superb returns of Madoff's hedge fund, which nobody may possibly clarify. Her article in Barron's, in accordance with multiple hundred interviews, can have avoided loads of distress, had the SEC up. yet virtually not anyone used to be prepared to think something undesirable approximately "Uncle Bernie"—so great, so humble, so beneficiant to charities. As Arvedlund exhibits, Madoff used to be no traditional liar, yet a grasp of the kind of lies humans particularly desired to think. He stored his consumers at a distance and allowed handsomely paid associates to solicit new ones for him; taking part in tough to get created an impossible to resist mystique. Now, Arvedlund tackles the cruel questions which are nonetheless unanswered within the wake of Madoff's cave in: Did he begin as a sound funds supervisor or was once he a fraud from the start? have been there symptoms of larceny on the very begin of his occupation? Why did Madoff's greatest supporters in the undefined, reminiscent of Walter Noel of Fairfield Greenwich and Ezra Merkin of Gabriel Capital, forget about the indications that have been so obvious? Did they decide to stay ignorant so long as their commissions rolled in? Why did SEC investigations fail to trap Madoff's Ponzi scheme even if a number of humans had voiced issues approximately his operation? Who else helped Madoff perform his rip-off? His relations and shut affiliates have denied any involvement, yet used to be it attainable for one guy to engineer a heist of such scope? together with her prepared investigative eye, Arvedlund provides a sweeping narrative of Madoff's career—from his adolescence in Queens, ny, to his early days operating for his partner's father, to his time as chairman of the NASDAQ trade, and eventually to infamy because the world's so much infamous swindler. She bargains a riveting glimpse of Madoff the man—an detached pupil with little ambition who reworked himself right into a celebrity with a expertise for buying and selling, a name for innovation, and an unmistakably erratic nature. Readers might be eager about Arvedlund's portrayal of Madoff, his empire, and all those that by no means thought of that he can be too stable to be precise.

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Madoff even publicly acknowledged that the investment community would resist the concept of totally automated trading. "The politics of trading off the exchange floor has been hard to overcome," he said in 1986. "The very concept of a floor is to keep the business in one place. " In 1987, NASDAQ Workstation software was introduced that allowed almost any personal computer to serve as a trading terminal. The heart of Madoff's technological success was inside his own firm— the Madoff Integrated Support System (MISS), an automated trading system designed by TCAM Systems Group, a New York systems integrator.

The fraud was huge, by far the largest financial scam in history. He had stolen billions of dollars from thousands of investors, and he had managed to keep it going for probably three or four decades. The crime was spectacular in many, many ways, but nothing about it was more shocking than the fact that Bernie Madoff was the man who did it. In the world of stockbrokers, Bernard Madoff was a real, legitimate big-league player. He and his brother had built from scratch one of the most successful broker-dealer firms in New York.

So who am I? Who am I to say, 'Bernie, show me your books'? And if he did, what would I know? What would I see? How could I judge? How could I figure it out? " Chapter Two B ernie Madoff didn't need to be a crook. This was one of the things that most stunned Wall Street when the truth came to light. The fraud was huge, by far the largest financial scam in history. He had stolen billions of dollars from thousands of investors, and he had managed to keep it going for probably three or four decades.

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