# How do you piss away 50 billion dollars? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 15, 2008, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-piss-away-50-billion-dollars/477219 "2008-12-15T07:35:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2008, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-piss-away-50-billion-dollars/477219/41 "2008-12-21T15:13:27Z")
Poor guy is under house (penthouse) arrest. Shameful how we mistreat the rich. ---
**Author:** ![accidentalyuppie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@accidentalyuppie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/accidentalyuppie)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2008, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-piss-away-50-billion-dollars/477219/42 "2008-12-21T20:12:03Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > “White Collar” criminals who lose millions (or billions!) of other peoples money steal more time away from peoples lives than serial killers. > > At a certain point, losing enough money becomes just as bad as killing somebody. Our government acknowledges this when it does cost/benefit calculations on environmental policies. Look at this story from the [Washington Post](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/07/19/ST2008071900185.html): > > 50 billion divided by 7.22 million equalls 6,925 lives worth of money lost! I’m not a big fan of the death penalty, but if murderers deserve it so does Enron-scale thievery. The total value of property and human capital loss of the 2001 World Trade Center attacks was estimated at 45 billion…11 billion of this number is the acturial value of the lives lost. [http://www.comptroller.nyc.gov/bureaus/bud/reports/WTC\_Attack\_Oct\_4-final.pdf](http://www.comptroller.nyc.gov/bureaus/bud/reports/WTC_Attack_Oct_4-final.pdf) So Bernie committed an unimaginably huge crime although it lacked the shock and awe of 9-11. And this will hurt EVERYONE, billions of this money was destined for charitiable funding and when that goes government and society end up taking up the slack. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2008, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-piss-away-50-billion-dollars/477219/43 "2008-12-21T20:56:33Z")
This is actually a slice of what the financial experts did to us. Their operations were not transparent. They were not regulated or were in bed with the regulators. They were in control of the auditors. They also had the rating agencies in their payroll. The politicians did not have the balls to go after them. We are so stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2008, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-piss-away-50-billion-dollars/477219/44 "2008-12-22T00:02:10Z")
Reportedly Fifth Avenue Synagog lost 2 Billion with Madoff. What sort of temple has an endowment of over 2 million? > **[SYNAGOGUE OF $UFFERERS](https://nypost.com/2008/12/21/synagogue-of-ufferers/)** > > Members of a posh Upper East Side synagogue suffered a $2 billion bloodbath in Bernie Madoff’s epic Ponzi scheme. The Fifth Avenue Synagogue ranks with the decimated rolls of the Palm Beach C… ---
**Author:** ![Jesse\_Leigh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7ea924/32.png) [@Jesse\_Leigh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jesse_Leigh)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2008, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-piss-away-50-billion-dollars/477219/45 "2008-12-22T15:33:23Z")
Greetings! D’you think all these people _meant_ to do something underhanded or did they just have bad business ideas? Or were they dreamers, perhaps, whose reach exceeded their grasp? Just wondering. - Jesse. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2008, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-piss-away-50-billion-dollars/477219/46 "2008-12-22T15:59:50Z")
Golden Showers? ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mighty\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Girl)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2008, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-piss-away-50-billion-dollars/477219/47 "2008-12-23T03:31:01Z")
> [@cletus](#): > > The SIPC covers up to $500,000 of a account if the brokerage goes under for any reason. [This](http://wcbstv.com/business/madoff.ponzi.scheme.2.888036.html) was the first link that came up when I did a quick search. Your husband MIGHT also be able to deduct his losses but it could take years to know for sure. This is for Americans only BTW. Your post kinda implies he is a citizen of another country. Anyways I wish the best of luck to you both. Denmark. We are not in dire straits as he’s still young enough that things might even out in th end. It might also be insured. We don’t know. ---
**Author:** ![brujaja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-piss-away-50-billion-dollars/477219/48 "2008-12-24T08:57:56Z")
> [@Umbriel2](#): > > Ponzi’s original scheme was framed in a simple “pay me $X and in a few weeks I’ll return to you $Y” terms. It required a lot of cash turnover just to keep going. It had to keep growing or it would collapse. It’s more common for modern “Ponzi schemes” to have more limited cash outflows – Investors are encouraged to keep their money invested so as to make even more. The amount investors still do withdraw is more than covered by the net investments, but growth in membership can safely plateau after a while. > > I don’t think anywhere near $50 billion got paid out. It was probably simply lost, most likely in the traditional fashion of buying high and selling low, and probably accelerated by a strategy of “doubling down” as _Shalmanese_ described above. The current financial crisis flushed out the fraud both by crushing the fund’s actual investments and by causing investors to make unusually large withdrawals (out of fear and need for cash). Sad to say, this doesn’t sound all that different from regular banks. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-piss-away-50-billion-dollars/477219/49 "2008-12-24T13:58:28Z")
> [@Jesse\_Leigh](#): > > Greetings! > > D’you think all these people _meant_ to do something underhanded or did they just have bad business ideas? Or were they dreamers, perhaps, whose reach exceeded their grasp? > > Just wondering. - Jesse. I think many absolutely knew he was scamming or skirting the rules . As long as they made money they were content. But many suspected . He showed steady profits for many years ,no matter what the economy did. You have to wonder. Some who looked in ,blew the whistle ,but the SEC was just like his little auditing company. They were doing the work of their bosses. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-piss-away-50-billion-dollars/477219.md?page=2)