Holman Jenkins blames the victims in the Madoff scandal.
Well, they deserve some blame for naively believing such a con artist. There were safer places to put their money. They went with the sweet-talking Madoff instead.
Money Q:
"It is common to wax nostalgic for a time when a man's word was his bond, business was done on a handshake, etc. This is poppycock. It has always been a client's job to sort out the dealer who could be trusted from the one who couldn't. Personal connections may give comfort, but are no substitute for true institutional checks or true experience of a man's character, which many of Mr. Madoff's clients seemed not to have.
"Instead, they went on "reputation," which is to say they acquired their faith in Mr. Madoff more or less the way people acquire their faith in global warming and many other things, from people equally as ignorant as they."
Read it all.
Just as with the impending subprime mortgage meltdown, turns out that Repubs had sounded the warning alarm about Madoff too but the Libs wouldn’t listen.
ReplyDeleteIt should be formal U.S. policy that any liar who blames all this financial mess on Bush gets a punch in their lying mouths.