"Ruth Madoff forfeits assets, left with $2.5 million" WHAT??
From Reuters 6/26/09:
"Ruth
Madoff forfeits assets, left with $2.5 million"
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE55Q0BF20090627
WHAT???
"Court documents filed on Friday night showed Ruth Madoff, 68, who has said nothing in public about her husband's crimes in the six months since his arrest, would be left with $2.5 million in cash."
Our DOJ prosecutors are as corrupt and useless as the SEC, our Congress people, Dodd, Shumer et al.?
Now of course Ruth Madoff should receive a fair trial, but she was the bookkeeper for Bernie from the start. There is strong evidence her father was in on the Madoff frauds from way back when.
So what part of her inheritance from her father and "her" money is not traceable right back to Bernie's crimes?
So where are the indictments against the brother, sons, nieces and Ruth?
In a related article it was reported the Madoff's relinquished claims to loans... does that mean the millions "loaned" to Mark, Andrew and Peter for property purchases are not viewed as payola in the scheme?
"The Madoffs will also lose their interest in "tens of millions of dollars" in loans they had made to family, employees and friends."
Read this completely misleading CNN title:
"Madoff
reduced to nothing"
http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/26/news/economy/madoff_sentence/?postversion=2009062622
Ruth's $2.5 million ain't nothing you morons at CNN...
Add the useless Corporate News media to the list.
Prosecutors
have a lot of explaining to do. Our federal government teeters on the edge of
both financial and moral/legal bankruptcy.
20 years ago, within a year of Michael Milken's junk bond fraud implosion, he faced a 98 count felony indictment.
Wall St. has perpetrated fraud on an exponentially larger scale and we see NO INDICTMENTS of the MBS junk bond crowd. Not one. In fact the opposite. Wall Street received the greatest asset shift from the US tax payer in human history as a reward for their crimes courtesy of our elected representatives.
Can any one say "Regulatory Capture" ?These issues are not unrelated. It has taken the Fed 20 years to become completely corrupt and ineffective in law enforcement against the "HAVES" as opposed to the have nots... yet we the latter pick up the tab.
Watch Madoff's sentence get classified under "state secrets."
June 27, 2009 1:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good points all. I heard a guy today on NPR who had to sell his house and move in with his daughter in another state because he lost everything to the Madoff's. My question is this: If they are selling off their billions in assets, who will get that money; will it be like class action law-suits where each complainant gets about $5 and the lawyers who "represented" them get millions?
June 27, 2009 9:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks.
June 27, 2009 8:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
This story is just unbelievable. Is this general policy - giving the criminals a cut of their booty? I don't get the legal reasoning..
June 27, 2009 11:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Plea bargain has legal reasoning?
"she could still be liable to civil claims"
"Bernard Madoff forfeited all rights to assets totaling $170 billion"
I had not heard anything like that figure before!
"federal investigators have identified 1,341 investors in Madoff's firm, with losses exceeding $13 billion"
And that's a new figure to me, too. I suppose it's the net of cash-in minus cash-out, regardless of the believed market value of the fake assets.
June 27, 2009 3:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Right, Ruth can be sued in civil court. But let's go back to the analogy.
How many drug dealers wives get to keep $2.5 million out of comingled bank accounts?
How many drug dealers wives get to keep money after withdrawing $15 million from tainted accounts days before her drug dealer husband turned himself in?
The WSJ is now reporting it like Ruth got ripped:
Madoff's Wife Cedes Asset Claim
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124612092335264949.html
"...keeping just $2.5 million in cash in an agreement reached with federal prosecutors."
June 27, 2009 8:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Funny, the "have nots" pay no taxes. 43% of Americans either have no federal income tax liability or pay no taxes. How, exactly, are the "have nots" picking up the tab? You're an idiot. Oh, here's citation: IRS.gov
If the argument is that whoever Mr. Madoff gave money to should be repaid, then the government should start repaying those tax dollars to the investors that lost fortunes via Madoff.
June 27, 2009 5:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Allow me to retort:
Your fallacies of argument by classification:
1. Ad Hominem attack: "You’re an idiot."
Therefore you argument is invalid.
Your logic: A fallacy.
2. Missing the Point or a "Red Herring" Argument:
"43% of Americans either have no federal income tax liability or pay no taxes."
Nobody said anything about tax payers paying of all the Madoff victims. Only you said it.
"If the argument is that whoever Mr. Madoff gave money to should be repaid…"
In logic, a false premise leads to a true conditional statement no matter what. That is why fallacious arguers love the false premise.
3. Fallacy of Composition:
"43% of Americans either have no federal income tax liability or pay no taxes. How, exactly, are the "have nots" picking up the tab?"
If you pay no federal income tax, you pay no federal tax.
"However, being exempt from income tax does not mean you're exempt from federal taxes. Everyone who works is liable for payroll taxes, contributions to Medicare and Social Security that come out of every paycheck. There are also excise taxes on some goods and services, most notably the 18.4 cents per gallon tax on gasoline. The Congressional Budget Office found that earners in the lowest quintile, where most of those with no income tax liability fall, shouldered 4.3 percent of the payroll tax burden in 2005 and 11.1 percent of the excise taxes. Their effective tax rate (which is calculated by dividing taxes paid by total income) in those categories, according to the CBO, was in fact significantly higher than the rate of the top quintile, although that top one-fifth of the population had a much higher effective tax rate for individual and corporate income taxes."
-Jess Henig
FactCheck.org
http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/do_40_percent_of_americans_pay_no.html
Everybody pays SOME federal tax:
From the CBO:
-Average income ————Effective fed tax rate
Lowest 20 %………$15,900 ……….…… 4.3 %
Second 20 %…….$37,400………..…… 9.9 %
Middle 20 %………$58,500………….. 14.2 %
Fourth 20 %………$85,200………….. 17.4 %
Top 20 %………$231.300…………..25.5 %
Top 1 %………$1,558,500…………31.2 %
Everyone pays for the federal government. Taxation is only one economic measure. Lost wages, declining living standards, plummeting home values, 401k loses, rising unemployment are all consequences that 99% of Americans are suffering for the benefit of a corrupted government that serves the 1% on Wall Street.
That is who pays, us.
June 27, 2009 8:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for that, but CMN is an ignorant troll, so don't waste too much more time on it. Facts are not of interest, except to the rest of us, so thanks for the update, but realize that CMN is really, really, really dense.
June 27, 2009 9:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
And right. Don't forget right. Because when you grow up you'll think "damn, he was right all along. Why did I vote my liberty away?"
June 28, 2009 12:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
> 1. Ad Hominem attack: "You’re an idiot."
> Therefore you argument is invalid.
No, it's a fact.
> 2. Missing the Point or a "Red Herring" Argument:
> "43% of Americans either have no federal income tax liability or pay no taxes."
This is valid because the government is redistributing Mrs. Madoff's money. Can this get any easier?
> However, being exempt from income tax does not mean you're exempt from federal taxes. Everyone who works is liable for payroll taxes, contributions to Medicare and Social Security that come out of every paycheck
Maybe that's why I said federal income tax? Gee, I guess it can get easier.
> There are also excise taxes on some goods and services, most notably the 18.4 cents per gallon tax on gasoline.
Yeah, a federal gas tax, not income tax. Words must really only mean what you want them to mean.
> The Congressional Budget Office found that earners in the lowest quintile, where most of those with no income tax liability fall, shouldered 4.3 percent of the payroll tax burden in 2005
A whole 4.3%! Funny how this is the same CBO you ignore on the Health Care cost.
> and 11.1 percent of the excise taxes.
They could effectively choose not to pay these taxes based on their consumption. Poor decisions make poor people.
> Everybody pays SOME federal tax:
Not income, though. Words are important, no matter which ones you choose to ignore.
> Taxation is only one economic measure.
Yes, the important one, where the government forcibly removes my money from me.
> Lost wages, declining living standards, plummeting home values, 401k loses, rising unemployment are all consequences that 99% of Americans are suffering for the benefit of a corrupted government that serves the 1% on Wall Street.
Not only opinion, but false. The government is stifling economic growth by redistributing wealth to those it sees fit. Refer to FDR and 1929-1945. I can only hope we elect a president that doesn't keep making bad choices like FDR did.
June 28, 2009 12:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Your words betray you once again:
Either/or?
June 28, 2009 9:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Used in the same sentence. Learn english; it's the same verb used against similar subject material.
June 28, 2009 1:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh baloney, if you are differentiating now it's because you've been spewing the same idiotic garbage across dozens of threads and been taken to account over how incorrect you are.
Tell me, how much of peoples incomes are presently going to health insurance? 10%? 20%? More? Any government plan would be relief in the form of extra money in most peoples pockets. Not to mention an vast improvement in the quality of life, I doubt there are many people left in this country that haven't been screwed by the Health insurance companies or know people who have been. They did it to themselves. Oh, well.
The government does a lot of things better than the private markets, health care is one of them. I can look at the real world results, or believe your lying twisted statistics.
Come on, fess up, you are some kind of idiot VP in a health insurance company quaking in your boots because your cushy job is about to get "insourced." Maybe you can get a job at McDonalds. Quit your whining.
I assure you, you won't get much sympathy around here.
June 28, 2009 6:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
> The government does a lot of things better than the private markets, health care is one of them. I can look at the real world results, or believe your lying twisted statistics.
Man, this sounds like something you'd hear in China.
I'll believe statistics every day over our federal government.
I don't think anyone should have to sacrifice their personal liberty and property "for the greater good." This is Marxist, and wrong, and slavery.
June 28, 2009 7:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, it is promoting the general welfare, and it is done in every other civilized country.
Welcome to the 21st Century.
Greedy self-centeredness is soooo 1980. As for saying "you're fired," well, after you fire everyone, good luck. You'll be stuck with no workers to actually do the work, and you'll be joining them on the dole. Sorry you're about to join the real do-for-themselfers, but hey, when you had a chance to help THEM, you failed.
When all you care about is "you" it just doesn't make for a stable society. Don't worry though, we'll all chip in a bit to keep you out of the gutter.
June 28, 2009 8:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I completely support your right to donate money to who you want to. There are plenty of great charities out there with a lot less overhead than the federal government.
By not stealing my money from me, any donation I make can be larger and less wasted.
The whole "General Welfare" is part of a systematic abuse of liberty and property. It is a crime against the very humanity you're trying to protect to enslave one demographic for another. When will you liberals ever quit trying for slavery? We defeated you on the blacks, we'll defeat you on the wealthy too.
June 29, 2009 8:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey CVille, I think CMN is "Sock Puppet Ruth Madoff":
"This is valid because the government is redistributing Mrs. Madoff's money. Can this get any easier?"
Get that... "Mrs. Madoff's"
Besides failing to even understand the definitions of the fallacies illuminated in the consistent use of invalid argument...
June 28, 2009 6:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah. After a while, it just gets boring with the stupidity of CMN's responses. I am not going to bother any more. It's kind of like talking to a 3 year-old about "Pete and Repeat sat on a fence. If Pete fell off who was left?" ...and getting to do it over & over because after all the person is only 3 and doesn't get it until about the 10th try. In CMN's case "it" never catches on. Sad, really.
June 28, 2009 6:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Aren't your parents home, little boy?
Here is a dollar. Go chase down that ice cream truck, get yourself an ice cream...
and go bother the other neighbors, little boy.
Say, isn't that your mom calling you?
Run along now and you keep the change...
June 28, 2009 5:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
> Run along now and you keep the change...
Funny, I was going to say the same to you.
June 28, 2009 6:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Funny, I was going to say, you ought to practice saying, "You want fries with that?"
June 28, 2009 7:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nah, I've been practicing saying "You're fired," pending legislation being debated.
Interesting how the man that promised jobs is destroying them.
June 28, 2009 7:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/problem_is/2009/06/ruth-madoff-forfeits-assets-le.php#comment-3511907
June 28, 2009 8:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks CVille Dem. I like to hear from people with counter positions if they have facts. We can all learn something.
You can learn something from everybody. From a homeless guy picking up cans, a janitor, or an expert or a professor. You just have to keep things in the context of the situation being discussed and evaluate the person's view based on where they are coming from. i.e. put yourself in their shoes and see how the world looks from there.
The thing most under appreciated in US society is the fact that propaganda has had an amazing toll on the American public. It did not start yesterday. That is why I listed Alex Carey's "Taking the Risk Out of Democracy" first on the book list.
US pro imperial, pro corporate propaganda has done irreparable damage to the American public over the last century. The masses of Americans who vote for economic policy that benefit the upper 1% and screw the very middle class ideologues who vote for these policy with dogmatic fury I think is proof beyond any doubt. i.e. our above friend thinking everything is about taxing him/her.
Watch the average American knee jerk at the simple statement "Socialized medicine" or "Tax cuts do not pay for themselves!" (They don't actually, not even close statistically).
Propaganda had done this to our pour fellow citizens who could not analyze their way out of a potato chip bag....
June 27, 2009 11:35 PM | Reply | Permalink