MovieChat Forums > Inside Job (2010) Discussion > Madoff .... what a patsy

Madoff .... what a patsy


Bernie Madoff has become the scapegoat of the century.

The public seems happy that one villain is behind bars, but frankly, Madoff's only in jail today because his con was too small. Wall Street has shown how the large con is more effective and how nobody goes to jail.

Lets face it. Madoff was nothing more than a rich jew who stole money from other rich jews. Wall Street's con job, by comparison, was much, much more. Instead of a ponzi scheme, Wall St sold ponzi "insurance", and it turned out to be a much bigger, costlier, systemic problem.

Bernie Madoff is the equivalent to a street dealer of illegal drugs, and Wall Street is the equivalent to an illegal drug cartel. As it stands now, the street dealer is in jail, and the cartel members are walking free.

Madoff needs to be let out of jail simply on the premise that the street dealer's crime is too small to take up jail space when they need jail space for the cartel members.

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That is an interesting thought.
I found myself thinking at some point in the movie: "Shouldn't Bernard be mentioned about now?".

He still deserves jail though. It isn't like the jails are THAT full.

You may however be right about the bigger fishes...

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I think Madoff was kept out of the movie on purpose, because he really had no direct connection to the housing crisis or derivatives in general, and his presence in jail would only pacify the audience somewhat, giving people the false impression that justice in being served somehow, when it clearly is not in regards to this particular Wall Street looting exercise.


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Madoff didn't just steal from other rich people, he stole from poor people as well. The difference is, the poor people are now forever *beep* because their safety net they've been saving for decades was taken away. The rich people lost a fraction of their wealth and that is why Madoff got so much attention and jailtime.



I hate coconut! Not the taste, the consistency...

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Agree, the real crooks are the raiders at Goldman-Sachs and their type who caused the crises in both the US and Europe (see how G-S for example hid Greek debt just as they'd hidden the debt of subprime), many of the crooked insurance companies charging rising rates for worse service (esp in health), and others with enough lobbyists to stay out of jail. Madoff was a convenient fall guy for the real crooks in this.

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Bernie Madoff had nothing to do with the mortgage collapse.

Why are you even talking about him? He has absolutely nothing to do with the economic collapse of 2008. He wasn't a banker, a politician, he didn't sell mortgage securities.

And why is he in jail? Because he confessed. He confessed to stealing peoples money. Why the *beep* would you not put him in jail?


"sd45-1" the fact that you started this thread shows how colossally stupid you are and that you have no idea what you are saying.

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"sbilfer", nobody (myself or the other reespondants) was implying that Madoff was directly involved with mortgages. Only you did, and that was only to enable you to throw your darts. It's a textbook Strawman argument on your part.

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[deleted]

This crises requires the worst humanity has to offer in both greed on one side, and stupidity on the other

And really when you take a closer look at that "The Bernie Madoff Show" he just has to stand unquestionably and indubitably for the "face" of all that Marx Bros fancy schmancy financial mayhem foisted upon the public at large who just loved to ride winning horses. What better man than him to pick for our financial zeitgeist? Bernie and the other financial boys drank from the same well. Unfortunately, we all got poisoned. That's what happens when you drink from the same well!

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The crisis affected a lot more than just the people who bought houses they couldn't afford.

Required reading for theater patrons:
http://tinyurl.com/shutheeffup

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[deleted]

Bernie Madoff's mistake was that he didn't lobby the gov't to get all of the laws repealed to make what he did technically legal.

Wall Street did not make that mistake. They pushed and pushed until they got all the deregulation they wanted. That's the difference.

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It also would have helped if he had made it so he was somehow integral to the people he was screwing over, like the banks who are "too big to fail."

Required reading for theater patrons:
http://tinyurl.com/shutheeffup

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