Ponzi or no Ponzi? That is the Question...

According to an AP story running this morning, it seems that, the IRS is giving people a break who invested in Madoff and other known Ponzi schemes.

IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman told Congress the new guidelines are for taxpayers who have suffered losses from Ponzi investment schemes such as the massive Madoff swindle.

He said the guidelines will apply to victims of all Ponzi schemes — financial scams in which early investors are paid returns from money put in by later investors. But given the scope of the Madoff scandal, the IRS wanted to establish an easy system for investors to recover taxes they paid on "fictitious income," Shulman said.

You know, when you think about it, anyone who invests in the stock market, based on what we have been seeing this past decade or so, should fall within this parameter. Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, and so many others that have pumped their stock to gain investors money in a fictitious manner. For those that cashed out on the rise of the stock are those who have made money in the scheme. However, there are many that stuck with the firm and ended up losing everything, and I'm finding it difficult to tell the difference any more of a stock market or a Ponzi scheme.

Let's see, this would also mean that we should all be able to deduct our expenses that are taxed us for the country's social security program. That is the largest Ponzi scheme ever concocted. Or what about our Medicaid or Medicare, these too are also failed Ponzi schemes that are in need or revamping their systems.

Based on these new IRS rules, there could be some money coming to all of us here real soon.




This, the 266th entry in bloggoland! Thanks for reading and coming back. I always enjoy the comments, emails and the banter!!


(c)Copyright 2009 Doug Boggs

Is Madoff going to Get Off?

Is there going to be more example of how the rich get away with everything in this "democratic" society? Or are we going to see an example set with Bernie, like we did with Bernie Ebbers? You remember him. He is the other most recent rich white dude that our system decided to use as an example to make a statement to the public that our system is fair. I wrote about that Bernie irony back on January 2, 2009.

It looks as though Madoff is going to "Get Off". Well, it's not sure just what getting off for him means, but a plea bargain is being negotiated at this time. He may get as little as one count of securities fraud which would lead him to a 20 year sentence, along with a $5 Million fine. The fine should be easy for him to cover. As far as the jail time, I think that he will be golfing for a few years and then get out, or even do no time at all. Which would be no surprise.

Although, he could also get a bit more. With one count for every client which would lead him to a life in prison sentence. Being that there is no record of any trades ever made through the years of his bilking $50 Billion from his clients, I would say that only one count of securities fraud, for him, may be a bit on the lenient side.

What if there were no other rich white folks involved in this situation. Is it that there is pressure from our societies elite families that Madoff is going to be dealing with the system. If there weren't rich people that were scammed, and Bernie, being the "highly respected, investment guru, socialite of New York, would he be doing time? Without the blasphemous words from the elitist crowd of the upper crust of society, those movers and shakers that get the prosecutors, mayors, and police Chief's elected, would there be such a stink for justice?

Will we ever know...?




This, the 262nd entry in bloggoland! Thanks for reading and coming back. I always enjoy the comments, emails and the banter!!


(c)Copyright 2009 Doug Boggs

Where's the CON in confidence? You hide it well...

I guess Washington relies on the factoid that Americans have a very short attention span.

Based on the comment from Lila Rajiva, the other day, who is the co-author of one of my favorite books, "Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets", and a must read (to which you can order from my book library spindle at the top) she mentioned that perhaps more writing needs to be done regarding the financiers who have swindled the world from its money. I do agree, do to the fact that most people have already forgotten what has really transpired in the past only four short months...You can find her blog on the right in the column titled "Other Blogs of Interest" to which I frequent and hers is called, Mind-Body Politic.

To recap;
Back in September, Bernanke and Paulson came to Washington and asked for a blank check with no strings attached so they could get the banks the $700B in order for the banks to begin to buy up the toxic assets...When Bush came forward and asked for the blank check-the public said,"not again with the blank check policy..." But basically the politicos gave in anyway after a few bullshit sessions to make things look good to their constituents since Nov. 4 was right around the corner...politics, right?!

Then the banks took the money and hoarded it. No one in Washington told them they actually had to DO something with OUR money we were giving to them-those who fucked it all up in the first place. Oh, some paid for some great parties and a few CEO's and such got some great golden parachutes albeit with different semantic wording in order to comply...but they still got their-I mean, OUR money...

Then the banks kept hoarding the money. They continue to blame it on the consumer confidence. Is this CON or CONfidence... Businesses failed, people went broke, people lost their homes, people lost their jobs, more people lost their homes...

Obama got elected and people began to see a new light to the world. People forgot about the shit...The banks kept hoarding the money...

But more businesses failed, more people went broke, more people lost their homes, more people lost their jobs, then more people lost their homes...

Well, Bernanke stated today, in a speech in London, that he thought that the banks should be given the rest of the $350B that Obama is asking for so that the banks could buy up the toxic assets.

I'm sorry, did I hear that again? I mean, did you stutter? I mean, do you mean it this time?

And I guess our Democratic Congress and Senate decided to get a set of balls when there is an incoming Democratic President. Where were the concerns and checks and balances for the Bush $350B(actually substantially more...)

I asked for the Democrats to get a set of balls, but perhaps they needed to have a damn backbone when we had the Bush criminals running the show...

Once again, you can't make this shit up!

Bernanke originally came in stating that our old friend Greenspan had failed at his job. By no oversight or foresight he seemed oblivious to the lending rates and bubble that was being created. Bernanke stated that Greenspan should have never brought down the rates as low as he did. Now, Bernanke has brought the rates to the lowest they have been since...I'm an American-I can't remember, oh that's a good thing for Bernanke...but I'll find out online...

Don't these people know that everything is recorded and secured for the rest of time through the internet, cell phones, Twitter, Facebook, blogs and more...?

Perhaps they don't care because they know that America has a very short attention span.

What was I saying again?...

Oh, yeah, I was talking about this guy who "made off" with all of our money...his name was Madoff! Anyway...

And we wonder where the CON is in consumer confidence...




This, the 237th entry in bloggoland! Thanks for reading and coming back. I always enjoy the comments, emails and the banter!!


(c)Copyright 2009 Doug Boggs

Bert and Ernie makes Bernie and the Shell game...

Bear with me and see this through as I make my point...This one is interesting and fun...

Bert and Ernie were basically the only Muppets to appear in the Sesame Street pilot episode, which was screen tested to a number of families in July 1969. Their brief appearance was the only part of the pilot that tested well, so it was decided that not only should Muppet characters be the "stars" of the show, but would also interact with the human characters, something that was not done in the pilot.

Bert and Ernie are roommates. Bert is good friends with a pigeon named Bernice, and is President of the National Association of W Lovers, a club dedicated to the letter "W". I am unclear if he is a fan of George Bush...Ernie's performance of "Rubber Duckie," wherein he sings affectionately about his squeaking toy duck and the joy it brings him during bathtime, became a modest mainstream hit, reaching No. 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 in September 1970.

A typical Bert and Ernie skit follows one of two similar patterns, both beginning with Ernie devising a hare-brained idea and Bert calmly attempting to talk him out of it. Usually this ends with Bert losing his temper and Ernie remaining oblivious to his own bad idea. Sometimes Ernie's idea miraculously turns out to be correct, much to Bert's evident frustration.

An example of a Bert and Ernie skit is the banana in my ear joke:

Bert: "Hey, you've got a banana in your ear!"
Ernie: "What?"
Bert: "I said, YOU'VE GOT A BANANA IN YOUR EAR!"
Ernie: "What? I can't hear you; I've got a banana in my ear!"

Bert: "Hey, you've got a banana in your ear!"
Ernie: "I know, I'm keeping the alligators away."
Bert: "But there aren't any alligators on Sesame Street!"
Ernie: "I know, it's working!"




No, this is not a picture of Ernie's brain on drugs, but an Abalone mollusk. Scientists have identified a group of genes, in the tropical marine Abalone mollusk, that control the formation of shapes and color patterns on the shell. A study published in the open access journal BMC Biology reveals that the shape and color patterns on the shell of the mollusk mirror the localized expression of specific genes in the mantle, a layer of skin situated just below the shell. The authors of the study identify one gene in particular that controls the formation of blue dots on the shell of the mollusk.

Another report found in the publication, Nature, done by University of California, Berkeley, researchers, indicates that we share the same genes that have been responsible for establishing the left-right asymmetry of animals for 500-650 million years, originating in the last common ancestor of all animals with bilateral body organization, creatures that include everything from worms to humans.

If you look at the the myriad of pictures you can find of our universe of different galaxies and other constellation formations you can compare them with those from snowflakes, to seashells, to crystals, cauliflower, coastlines, and broccoli and blood vessels. Our world, as well as the universe, possess some incredible patterns. Nature is filled with seemingly unlimited examples of amazing algorithmic arithmetic art.




A fractal, as seen above, is generally "a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole," a property called self-similarity. This term was coined by Benoît Mandelbrot in 1975 and was derived from the Latin fractus meaning "broken" or "fractured." A mathematical fractal is based on an equation that undergoes iteration, a form of feedback based on recursion.

Recursion, in mathematics and computer science, is a method of defining functions in which the function being defined is applied within its own definition. The term is also used more generally to describe a process of repeating objects in a self-similar way. For instance, when the surfaces of two mirrors are almost parallel with each other the nested images that occur are a form of recursion, like the infinite mirror exhibit at the local county fair.

Ebber, found in the urban dictionary means: The ultimate, above all, astounding, incredible, the best, top, something that nothing is better than. Perhaps we need a new definition, through a fractal style of symantics?

Let's use the recursion definition and combine Bert and Ernie to make, Bernie. Then, let's look at a couple of repeating situations, in a similar way whose functions are applied and nearly mirror themselves on some financial parallel plane. I'm talking about Bernie Madoff (pronounced Made-Off) and Bernie Ebbers.

Bernie Ebbers was the CEO of WorldCom (later known as MCI) which filed for bankruptcy in 2002, the largest bankruptcy in US history at the time. In 2005, Bernie was found guilty for his role in accounting fraud that cost $11 billion, and he was sentenced to 25 years in prison - the longest term for a CEO of a Fortune 500 company at the time, says CNN.

Bernie Madoff, without regurgitating all of the latest dailies, was the CEO of the largest Hedge fund that was recently discovered as a 40 year long Ponzi scheme that bilked the investors to the tune of $50 Billion. A new world record!!

Now, according to the urban dictionary, Ebber is the grandest of them all...well, it seems that definition is now needing a change to a new Bernie.




This, the 229th entry in bloggoland! Thanks for reading and coming back. I always enjoy the comments, emails and the banter!!


(c)Copyright 2009 Doug Boggs

The Truth is Better than Fiction, but Continue to Read Books!

The old adage that "the truth is better than fiction"...I must agree.

It seems our world is filled with truths and story's that are so outrageous, it makes creative writers pause and think that their own stories, no matter how morose or sensational one can be, it cannot even begin to compare to what truths lie out there. My continued mantra as of late has been, "You can't make this shit up...!"

I am one of the first to say that the imagination is one of the best attributes to possess. I live a lot of my life in that state...(sometimes perhaps to the detriment of my reality, but I digress)

Over the past eight years we have had the awe and wonderment of having Bush Jr. running the most powerful country on this planet. His own idiocy, or perhaps disguised brilliance, has astounded me from day one. (For those that voted for him, perhaps now is their time to take pause...but that is not the point...) With his capacity to spend the entire presidency lying, deceiving, murdering, and smiling the entire time I find him to possess a simply astounding capacity to be that of a living Satan. Recently, through the renowned TARP program, we have seen his cunning ability to pilfer away over $500 Billion tax dollars of the citizen precious future earnings while the world economy collapses, the people lose their jobs and homes, and without as much as a blink or regard or need to explain where the funds are going to? How amazing is that? I suggest looking for his offshore accounts...

The truth comes from a burning 'Bush'...

This past year we have seen the Austrian man, Josef Fritzl, who had his own child imprisoned in his own basement underneath the rest of his own family without their knowledge for nearly 25 years. During which he fathered 7 children from his own imprisoned daughter. One of which had died while a few days old. He then burned it in the oven to get rid of it...

Now, as of late, we have a 40 year ponzi scheme to the tune of $50 Billion conspired by Bernie Madoff. (By the by, his name is pronounced Made Off - as in Madoff made off with a lot of coin) It seems, despite the time line of 40 years of deception that this ponzi scheme took before the house of cards fell, he is going to claim as his defense, get this, insanity!

You can't make this shit up!!

Let's see, Madoff has been noted as one of the most respected investors on Wall Street for 40 odd years. His returns have been consistent and scrutinized by the SEC a few times over the duration and found to be sound, or at least they found no evidence of wrong doing. That is insane if anything. Maybe they were looking at the other set of books... He has been able to acquire billions of dollars of investment money from some of the richest people in the world...but, he is insane?! His statements to his clients recorded investments that never took place. Most of his clients are very rich, respectable investors. He also recently told his son, and a few people at the firm, that upon the breakdown of the investment scheme that it was just that, a scheme. There was no investment fund and it was broke. A house of cards that was going to collapse. But, then he's insane. But, it's the truth. And he had very intelligent investors fork over billions. Are they also so insane as to not recognize this man's own insanity for 40 years?

Now, he is on house arrest. (First of all, I find it funny how a black man in Amerika, who might steal a few bucks from the corner store, would have to do time in county prior to his trial while a rich, white man who conspires for forty years and embezzles billions from his clients gets house arrest.) It seems there is concern that he is not saying much. Probably due to his lawyers advising him to do so, in order to create the illusion of a mental breakdown. Or it could be the anti-depressants he is taking so as not to end up like his billionaire investment fund manager friend, Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, who committed suicide due to the loss of his clients money through this mayhem.

I must say, that there is nothing out of bounds, as based on our current reality, that one could come up with to write a fictional story. Although, if someone were to write these stories, prior to them being in the news, it would probably be labeled as sensationalistic, or outrageous, by the critics and the press.

The irony to the date of 9-11 to incredibly correspond with an emergency call, the irony of our first African-American decent President's name of Obama while we are in the midst of a global war on terror involving a man named Osama. (You notice the difference in the two names in B-S) The name of Madoff who conspired the greatest global Ponzi scheme ever to sound like Made Off... The gods are laughing their asses off while we endure this insane irony we call life on earth...

Life...truth is better than fiction.

Despite the truth, I still tell everyone to continue to read books!!


This, the 226th entry in bloggoland! Thanks for reading and coming back. I always enjoy the comments, emails and the banter!!


(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs