When will the first lawsuits be filed attempting to recoup Bernard Madoff's victims from the public dole - from taxpayers' pockets?

This brilliant creep was sentenced to a 150-year stretch today. Good. Although, it would be foolish to assume the veteran con man doesn't have some cash socked away in a mattress somewhere, and so we can be sure his expensive lawyers will continue energetically - and lucratively - pursuing justice for the poor, put-upon weasel. I see it all in my Coke-bottle crystal ball: fine candidate for early parole, just for his mop-bucket integrity alone.

But, from the beginning, this sad tale has been one of nonregulation connecting with prideful, sociopathic rapaciousness to produce a financial Frankenstein. The Securities and Exchange Commission seriously - and, perhaps, deliberately - dropped the ball here.

 Indeed, it was the agency's Boston office... that (whistleblower Harry) Markopolos first approached about Mr. Madoff, whom he strongly suspected of financial chicanery. In 2000, 2001 and 2005, he peppered investigators with evidence that, while circumstantial, was far more compelling than anything the S.E.C. ever had on Mr. Kwak. In 2005, the Boston office finally referred the Madoff matter to the S.E.C.'s New York office, which did nothing.

Madoff's victims feel let down. And well they should. At work here is our collective acquaintance with the devastating downside of deregulation - that magic mantra so agonizingly drummed into us over three decades, and which presented us all with such a dispiritingly fat bill when time came late last summer to pay the piper.

Already, there has been talk among some of the victims of suing the government to recompensate their losses. And some high-falutin' legal eagles think that's a sound idea:

"The SEC's incredible willful negligence" to not seriously investigate Madoff's operations despite repeated red flags and written warnings of his criminality probably makes the agency liable to legal action by aggrieved investors. The SEC, (Massachusetts School of Law at Andover Dean Lawrence Velvel) said, "has no discretion--none--to fail to follow up, with serious investigations, when presented with knowledgeable, detailed, obviously highly competent, and in many respects easily 'checkable' allegations of...a huge fraud that is fooling thousands of people, stealing billions of dollars, and causing horrible injustice." [SOURCE - Rights Radio]

But before we get all mushy and sentimental about these poor folks getting skinned alive, we must remember that they invested with Madoff mostly because he promised, and, for a long time delivered, astronomically high returns on their investments. That is any con-man's chief ally in any shyster game: His victims' own greed impels them to become unknowing partners in their own fleecing.

You could make a case that all victims of con games have cases against government - because law enforcement allowed such dodges to continue unprosecuted long enough to drain bank accounts and victims' trust in their own competence... and common human decency.

What does the taxpayer owe these victims? (Because, since the SEC, as a government bureaucracy, isn't a moneymaker, we'll be picking up the bill here.) Just what do we owe them?

Sorry: Nothing.

Con games happen. Victims lose. Something should have been done at the SEC level. In fact, Madoff's operation had a lot of feeder lines, and a lot of cooperative entities helping his operation prosper by looting. These firms and individuals should be rooted out, drained of assets, and punished with criminal-court sentences. 

And some of the investors are eligible for payments of up to $500,000 by an investor protection group. The court-appointed trustee also trying to "claw-back" all assets linked to Madoff, which then could be used to compensate investors; but only about $1.2 billion has been located so far, tiny portion of the estimated near-$60 billion Madoff made off with.

But if we, as taxpayers, are liable in this case... where does it end? Aren't all of the nation's endless, chronic victims entitled to some public tit? My late mom, like a screeching cockatoo, constantly prattled the shopworn phrase, "If something sounds too good to be true... it is." This was practically the chorus in her own personal theme song. But, you know what, even though her golden years were a bit tarnished by constant baiting by every shady operation - Nigerian emails, fly-by-night insurance salesmen, telemarketers utterly ignorant of the word "no" - she was never taken for a ride. She kept her tiny nest-egg in firm grasp up until the end.

We've got some expenses coming up this year. Healthcare - yes! Turning the endless, relentless recession around - of course! A lot of other expensive items in a year when many of us are unemployed, and bleeding savings and hope. 

Making it all better for people who themselves should have known better?

Sorry. No.