Do you have a cite for that? The lure of [investing in] Ponzi schemes is the excellent short-term return, not long-term security. Of course, people don’t know they’re investing in Ponzi schemes, just that Big Fake Investment Group is offering huge early returns.
Here’s an interesting quandary: some of Madoff’s investors actually came out well ahead, having cashed out a portion of the early returns. Now they can’t figure out what the hell to do, since they’re theoretically “owed” large sums of money, but actually made a profit on their original investment:
He turned some investors away, which gave his group some mystique.
He was a well-healed socialite, and very generous with charities, who returned the favor by placing their portfolios with this nice man.
Incidentally, at least 15 investment firms took fat fees from their clients for the service of simply passing on money to Bernie. Bloomberg Politics - Bloomberg
There’s also the matter of Bernie’s coworkers, many of them relatives, who of course knew of absolutely no wrongdoing.
What about the non-profits (at least some of whom didn’t know their money was going to Madoff)? Not only are they screwd (and IIRC some of them are now defunct because of this), but the people they helped (you know, the poor, etc.) are now fucked.
What kind of lame-o black magick rituals can keep a man alive for a million years, but are inadequate to the task of conjuring up money from nowhere at all?
I was only referring to the wealthy folks who Madoff personally tricked into investing with him. Obviously, the rank-and-file and corporations who invested with hedge funds that bought Madoff’s securities are a different case.