[Peace-discuss] Fw: "Bernie Madoff, Scapegoat" by Michael Moore
(for Time magazine)
E. Wayne Johnson
ewj at pigs.ag
Sat May 2 13:26:20 CDT 2009
Moore is right, inasmuch as Bernie is a sort of Lyndie England "We
caught THE PERPETRATOR" sort of scapegoat-victim-punching bag.
Bernie is a small-time cheat as Ponzi-schemes go. Consider "Social
Security" for instance. Heh.
Unfortunately Michael Moore gets close to sticking his knife into the
enormous pus-filled abscess of racketeering,
but he doesn't go far enough to open it all up and let it spew and ooze
and splatter the wall and ceiling and fill the hallway
with its putrid stench. Let it all out and then there is some chance
for health. Messy but essential.
It's Too Bad.
Michael Moore with all of his insight and cleverness has allowed himself
to become entangled with one arm of the giant Ponzi-PAC himself
and still thinks that there is protection in some region along the
right-left paradigm and that slinging mud at Them will protect Us.
Hopefully
Moore with extricate himself from the left-right combine on his own.
But for now, it appears that Moore, like so many others, doesnt yet
realize and admit that Strawberry
KoolAid only differs from Grape KoolAid in the colour and flavour. The
basic ingredients are the same in both packages.
On 5/2/2009 11:37 AM, Jenifer Cartwright wrote:
> Haven't read this yet myself, but Moore is always entertaining, and
> his heart is usually in the right (i e left-ish) place.
> --Jenifer
>
> --- On *Fri, 5/1/09, Michael Moore /<maillist at michaelmoore.com>/* wrote:
>
>
> From: Michael Moore <maillist at michaelmoore.com>
> Subject: "Bernie Madoff, Scapegoat" by Michael Moore (for Time
> magazine)
> To: jencart13 at yahoo.com
> Date: Friday, May 1, 2009, 10:58 AM
>
> /The following piece written by Michael Moore appears in this
> week's Time magazine (and in full at Time.com
> <http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1894410_1893837_1894189,00.html>)
> as part of their annual "Time 100" issue highlighting their
> choices for "The World's Most Influential People
> <http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,1894410,00.html>."/
> Elie Wiesel called him a "God." His investors called him a
> "genius." But, proving correct that old adage from the country and
> western song, you never really know what goes on behind closed doors.
> Bernie Madoff, for at least 20 years, ran a Ponzi scheme on
> thousands of clients, among them the people you and I would
> consider the best and brightest. Business leaders, celebrities,
> charities, even some of his own relatives and his defense attorney
> were taken for a ride (this has to be the first time a lawyer was
> hosed by the client).
> We're clearly in one of those historic, game changing years: up is
> down, red is blue and black is President. Aside from Obama
> himself, no person will provide a more iconic face of this
> end-of-capitalism-as-we-know-it year than Bernard Lawrence Madoff.
> Which is too bad. Yes, he stole $65 billion from some already
> quite wealthy people. I know that's upsetting to them because rich
> guys like Bernie are not supposed to be stealing from their own
> kind. Crime, thievery, looting — that's what happens on the other
> side of town. The rules of the money game on Park Avenue and Wall
> Street are comprised of things like charging the public 29% credit
> card interest, tricking people into taking out a second mortgage
> they can't afford, and concocting a student loan system that has
> graduates in hock for the next 20 years. Now that's smart
> business! And it's legal. That's where Bernie went wrong — his
> scheming, his trickery was an outrage both because it was illegal
> and because he preyed on his side of the tracks.
> Had Mr. Madoff just followed the example of his fellow top
> one-percenters, there were many ways he could have legally
> multiplied his wealth many times over. Here's how it's done.
> First, threaten your workers that you'll move their jobs offshore
> if they don't agree to reduce their pay and benefits. Then move
> those jobs offshore. Then place that income on the shores of the
> Cayman Islands and pay no taxes. Don't put the money back into
> your company. Put it into your pocket and the pockets of your
> shareholders. There! Done! Legal!
> But Bernie wanted to play X-games Capitalism, run by the mantra
> that's at the core of all capitalistic endeavors: Enough Is Never
> Enough. You have the right to make as much as you can, and if
> people are too stupid to read the fine print of their health
> insurance policy or their GM "100,000-mile warranty," well, tough
> luck, losers. Buyers beware!
> It would be too easy — and the wrong lesson learned — to put
> Bernie on TIME's list all by himself. If Ponzi schemes are such a
> bad thing, then why have we allowed all of our top banks to deal
> in credit default swaps and other make-believe rackets? Why did we
> allow those same banks to create the scam of a sub-prime mortgage?
> And instead of putting the people responsible in the cell block in
> Lower Manhattan, where Bernie now resides, why did we give them
> huge sums of our hard-earned tax dollars to bail them out of their
> self-inflicted troubles? Bernard Madoff is nothing more than the
> scab on the wound. He's also a most-needed and convenient
> distraction. Where's the photo on this list of the ex-chairmen of
> AIG, Merrill Lynch and Citigroup? Where's the mug shot of Phil
> Gramm, the senator who wrote the bill to strip the system of its
> regulations, or of the President who signed that bill? And how
> 'bout those who ran the fake numbers at the ratings agencies, the
> lobbyists who succeeded in making sleazy accounting a lawful
> practice, or the stock market itself — an institution that's
> treated like the Holy Sepulchre instead of the casino that it is
> (and, like all other casinos, the house eventually wins).
> And what of Madoff's clients themselves? What did they think was
> going on to guarantee them incredible returns on their investments
> every single year — when no one else on planet Earth was getting
> anything like that? Some have admitted they did have an inkling
> "something was up," but no one really wanted to ask what it was
> that was making their money grow on trees. They were afraid they
> might find out it had nothing to do with gardening. Many of
> Madoff's victims have told investigators that, over the years,
> they have made much more than the original investment they gave
> Bernie. If I buy a stolen car from the guy down the street, the
> police will take that car from me regardless of whether I knew it
> was stolen. If I knew it was stolen, then I go to jail for
> receiving stolen property. Will these "victims" give back their
> gains that were fraudulently obtained? Will the head of Goldman
> Sachs reveal what he was doing at the meetings with the Fed
> chairman and the Treasury secretary before the bailout? Will Bank
> of America please tell us what they've spent $45 billion of our
> TARP money on?
> That's probably going too far. Better that we just put Bernie on
> this list.
> /Moore's new documentary on the wonders of capitalism will be in
> movie theaters this fall./
>
>
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