Congress To Review Bernard Madoff Case

December 30. 2008

The U.S. Congress is set to review the Bernard Madoff ponzi scheme that cost national and international investors a reported $50 billion in losses.

Information made public a few days ago, confirms what I stated the week prior in this column, the government, in the form of the Securities and Exchange Commission received credible complaints about Madoff for years, as earlier as 1999, but looked the other way (see article below).

Whether or not the U.S. government will begin to remove the weeds from the garden remains to be seen. Here's hoping they don't do the usual and utilize that tired, old excuse of being understaffed and under-budgeted.

Either way, the U.S. economy is at stake and they need to move swiftly and judiciously. Some are taking comfort in the fact that not all aspects of the current financial crisis threatening the economy, equals or surpasses the Great Depression, but they are viewing it from the wrong angle. They are looking through the wrong window of economics.

There are variables present in the current financial crisis that were not there in the Great Depression, such as the sheer number of foreclosed homes that were lost, the escalating cost of the war in Iraq and combat in Afghanistan and the record national deficit. The equation needs to be looked at in all its parts, to correctly gain an accurate sum total.

Congress to examine Madoff case on Monday

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Lawmakers will take their first close look next Monday at financier Bernard Madoff's alleged $50 billion fraud and why the Securities and Exchange Commission failed to discover the scandal.

Information gleaned from the hearing will help guide Congress as it attempts to reform laws regulating the U.S. financial system, said Rep. Paul Kanjorski, a Pennsylvania Democrat and chairman of the House capital markets subcommittee.

"Madoff's actions have further weakened the already battered investor confidence in our securities markets," Kanjorski said in a statement on Monday.

Madoff, a former Wall Street fund manager, is accused of running a $50 billion fraud that ensnared investors and charities around the world, according to authorities.

http://news.yahoo.com/

Before his Dec. 11 arrest, Madoff confessed to employees that he was running a "giant Ponzi scheme" that may have lost as much as $50 billion. SEC chairman Christopher Cox has said the agency failed to act on "credible and specific allegations" of wrongdoing by Madoff dating back to at least 1999.

"It's unprecedented for the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission to go public and admit multiple failures," said Howard Elisofon, an attorney who is representing Molchatsky. "On that basis, we think they should step up to the plate."

http://www.newsday.com