I was recently reading an article in the "Wall Street Journal" and there was an article about Bernie Madoff. He was just sentenced to 150 years in jail, the maximum penalty for any jail time ever. For those of you who don't know what he did, I can explain simply. Madoff used investors money to operate a Ponzi scheme which had estimated client losses of at least $65 billion dollars, the largest investor fraud committed by one person in the world. What I was wondering is if you think its right that he was sentenced to the maximum amount of prison years for his crime. Personally, I don't think that one man should be held liable for the whole crime and a life sentence in prison is a little too extreme for me. What are your opinions?

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Even if he wasn't the only one doing it, he helped ruin many lives for his personal gain and he deserves his sentence.

I think that he should be held accountable for what he did. Also I have a feeling that he will not be in jail that long because he will be killed in prison.

He is in one of those rich people prisons so I highly doubt that will happen. However its obvious Madoff regretted what he did

"I have left a legacy of shame... to my children and grandchildren."
-Bernard Madoff

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He is my hero to be honest. Not only did he take peoples money right before their eyes without them saying anything, he went for such a long time without being caught. If the idiots are dumb enough to trust another person with their money, they should be faced with the consequences.

That's not fair. Under normal circumstances, people will not scam billions of dollars. How were these people supposed to know?

Why the hell would you trust someone with your money anyways?

...and yet the biggest Ponzi scheme in existence, social security, is still allowed to go on.


You don't think fraud is wrong?

Investors can possibly increase the money you put in, therefore making it worthwhile.

He's like 71 years old.

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-> Vouches <-

Trust no one has always been my moto. If your going to invest your LIFE SAVINGS (who the fuck does that anyways) then you better prepare to lose it.

They aren't stupid at all, Bernie Madoff was a non-executive chairman of the NASDAQ stock exchange, if I didn't know his previous crimes, I would entrust my life savings with this mans firm. They had no reason to believe he was operating a Ponzi Scheme at such a high end scale.

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Didn't he scam/use famous athlete's cash too?

So you would gamble your life savings on something your not guaranteed back?

It doesn't matter if the people were stupid or not, they entered a contract that their money would be invested. Madoff did something else - fraud.

So? The years of jail time was equal to the amount of crimes he did and the penalty for each crime. 11-count criminal charges, which added up to way more than 150 years but 150 years is the maximum non-lethal sentence a judge can give.

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Trust no one but yourself. Don't gamble, and you won't have this problem.

Heave, don't avoid my question.

... Do you not understand how investments work? This isn't "gambling" at all. For example, Michael Schwartz, a 33 year old from New Jersey, said his family's funds with Madoff had been for the care of his mentally disabled brother. This man is not a hero, he is a criminal.

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I'm well aware of this. Just saying, he isn't going to serve his time.

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-> Vouches <-

You invest money into a company, and hopefully the company will either a, get bigger which means they will sell their shares for more, which would make yours worth more. or they would b, release something that makes them a better company, on top of others which makes your share worth more. Obviously, if you invest your life savings into a company, and there shares go down you lose a shit ton of money in you investment.

So yes, it is gambling.