IN MY SHOES: “Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme Cost Me 30 Years Of Retirement Savings”
In a first-person piece published by Salon, best-selling author Geneen Roth describes the emotional whiplash she’s suffered since learning that her nest egg has been devoured by predatory financial guru Bernard Madoff:
Did I hear that diversification was smart? Absolutely. Did I choose to ignore that advice because I also got conflicting advice about Madoff being, as someone said, "the Jewish equivalent of T-bills"? Yes. I chose to find very smart people who (I thought) were as smart in their fields as I was in mine, and I chose to listen to them. …
I have chanted the mantra of "How could you, why did you, what's the matter with you?" Another, even meaner version of this is, "It serves you right. You thought you were above it all, different than everyone else. Well, guess what, honey? You're not." I have also been eager to blame someone else - anyone else - for the mess I am in: my friend Richard, who offered to let my husband and me into his Madoff fund; my accountant, who encouraged me to put all my money in one place; my friends, who all did the same thing. Where does the blame end? My father taught me to take risks, to accumulate wealth. He said it didn't matter how I did it. But this was after 40 members of his family were killed in Auschwitz and his motto became, "God abandoned us. There is no such thing as morality, and it's every man for himself." Do I blame my father, who has been dead for eight years? Or is it Hitler's fault that I put my money into a Ponzi scheme?
Editorial Note:The New York Times profiles Thomas V. Liccardi, 86, a retired accountant who prepared tax returns for estates, who lost the money that he and his 84-year-old wife were going to use to pay for their upkeep in an assisted living facility in Tuckahoe, NY. Both have had strokes, he also had a heart attack, so they need round-the-clock care.
The Madoff saga is proving tragicomic. Ruined pensioners and suicides over lost fortunes are heartrending, to be sure. But then there’s this: One of Madoff’s victims is Marc Rich, reports The New York Times:
Many investors who have lost money as clients of the financier Bernard L. Madoff have done what anyone might be expected to do in that situation: seek recourse through the courts.
But one potential victim, Marc Rich, is not likely to go that route because of his own legal issues. Mr. Rich is the commodities trader who fled to Switzerland in 1983 to escape prosecution for financial crimes and later received a pardon from President Bill Clinton on the last night of his administration in 2001.
Monika Meili, a spokeswoman for Mr. Rich’s office in Zug, told Bloomberg News on Thursday, “We can confirm that the Marc Rich Group and Marc Rich have an insignificant exposure held indirectly, which has no material impact on the overall financial situation of the group.”
The loss was $10 million to $15 million, according to someone with long knowledge with Mr. Rich’s finances who insisted on anonymity because he had not been authorized to speak.
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