December 13, 2008

The Steve Sailer Man of the Year Award for Annoyingly Relentless Skepticism goes to ...

Harry Markopolos, who has been a complete pain-in-the-ass for the last nine years as he tried to alert a world that totally didn't want to hear about it that Bernie Madoff's money management business was actually a $50 billion pyramid scam. The WSJ reports:

Harry Markopolos, who years ago worked for a rival firm, researched Mr. Madoff's stock-options strategy and was convinced the results likely weren't real.

"Madoff Securities is the world's largest Ponzi Scheme," Mr. Markopolos, wrote in a letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 1999.

Mr. Markopolos pursued his accusations over the past nine years, dealing with both the New York and Boston bureaus of the SEC, according to documents he sent to the SEC reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

In a statement late Friday, the SEC said "staff from the Division of Enforcement in New York completed an investigation in 2007, and did not refer the matter to the Commission for enforcement action." The SEC said it reopened the investigation Thursday. It's not clear what the focus of the 2007 investigation was, or why it was closed. A person familiar with the matter said it related to issues raised by Mr. Markopolos.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

15 comments:

m said...

Steve, it's bad form to gloss yourself but we'll allow it this one time.

Question...why do we have to type word verifications- are there numerous unlawful people trying to comment here?

Anonymous said...

Steve, I find the Jewish angle on the Madoff story to be disconcerting to say the least.

As an American, and a lifelong consumer of Hollywood entertainment products, Madoff's Jewish background simply doesn't dovetail with my conscious and subconscious impressions of the Jewish Community.

From an early age I learned that the fast talking city slicker Bugs Bunny was the good guy and that "Bugs From Brooklyn" suffered terrible persecutions engineered by the evil and stupid, and very rural, Elmer Fudd.

And, as I have grown older, I do not remember much, if any, instances of identified Jewish malfeasance in our national storytelling industry i.e. our national psyche. No, I really can't recall any criminal activities being overtly attributed to Jewish persons in my wide experience of American pop culture.

Therefore I suggest you look elsewhere for the real mastermind behind this $50 billion ponzi scheme. I would concentrate on tall, blonde, nordic types as the most likely perpetrators who are actually controlling events from behind the scenes.

Eric said...

Wow. People have been saying the SEC is going to look bad on this one, but one has to wonder if there's more going on here than just stupidity.

Anonymous said...

Markopolos the antisemite should be jailed for hatespeech.

Anonymous said...

"Markopolos": is that a Greek name?

Anonymous said...

I find the fact that so many people trusted this Madoff to be touching.

High trust societies are nice places.

But con men destroy that.

You're saying we should be more skeptical of people.

But a society where you have to be on guard all the time, where you can't take anything at face value, is not a nice place.

Anonymous said...

Back in the 1990's, I knew the whole dot.com economy was a hoax, a flimsy house of cards.

Of course, when I tried to tell people about this, I was treated as some kind of luddite who obviously didn't "get it".

Anonymous said...

Steve, don't take your eye off the ball. The ball being Robert Rubin.

Anonymous said...

Another Chicken Little not selected for the Obama administration. His latest pick for HUD sec, an architect by the name of Donovan.

All the Chicken Littles, Cassandras and collape profiteers are conspicuously absent.

Anonymous said...

For more on Jewish Bugs Bunny see this:

http://seforim.blogspot.com/2007/08/elliott-horowitz-responds-to-david.html

AmericanGoy said...

Harry Markopolos is not Jewish.

His opinion does not count.

I wonder when Mr. Madoff somehow lands in Tel Aviv International...

Few days, I think.

AmericanGoy said...

"From an early age I learned that the fast talking city slicker Bugs Bunny was the good guy and that "Bugs From Brooklyn" suffered terrible persecutions engineered by the evil and stupid, and very rural, Elmer Fudd."

You know, I was just thinking the same thing the other day.

No joke.

Bugs Bunny cartoons, the non working, lazy but wisecracking wise-guy, really PISS me off on a very subconscious level.

I literally get very angry at any Bugs Bunny cartoons.

Weird, huh?

Anonymous said...

Nothing new here - Jews are disproportionately white-collar criminals in all of the countries they have ever settled in. See, for instance, in America: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_white-collar_criminals -- a lot of American Jews also used to be blue-collar criminals, too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Jewish_American_mobsters

Yeshiva University actually tried to delete Madoff's name from its website after the scandal broke - but they failed. And the New York Times also removed information about his Jewish connections from an article written about him too. See: http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2008/12/exclusive-yu-sa.html

Anonymous said...

Sad, but Bernie Madoff's Jewish connection is one that Jews recognized early on. Several Jewish sources have been quoted as saying they called him "the Jewish T-bond". Like on the one hand you have the US government. On the other hand you have Bernie Madoff. Who you gonna trust?

And he, like the Jewish shyster who was selling forged promissory notes in Toronto, played up the ethnic angle. They were both big donors to Jewish causes, like that Jewish race-purity foundation that gets Jewish kids to Israel when their hormones act up so they will shtupp some Sabra soldier and not some goy dude or dudette back in the USA. Worthy goal, of course. We all should learn a lesson from the Jews and do the same thing.

Anonymous said...

"American Goy said...

I literally get very angry at any Bugs Bunny cartoons.

Weird, huh?"

Do they make you "very angry", or "vewy angwy"?

I had never thought about it before, but I get your point.