Crack of Doom: Bernie. In the Lipstick Building. With the Shoebox.

… These statements had to be “true” in the sense that a great novel is “true”, even if the things related in it did not happen. To top it all off, there have been no charges of conspiracy against Mr Madoff. That means that, as far as prosecutors are concerned, and as far as we are permitted to speculate, this make-believe investment history was his own creation. He must have been one of the hardest-working men of his generation. [1]

"How much of Bernie Madoff pleading guilty is so that there won’t be testimony under oath and we’ll never find out what really happened?"

Doom has seen an awful lot of electronic ink spilled over the last little while dedicated to the proposition that the Madoff case was no more difficult than a session of Clue!  The fiendishly clever culprit who did in Mr. Body has been caught, his guilt proved, and now that he will serve 150(?!) years in prison we can all go up to bed with a clear conscience.

Or not. 

UPDATE: Alice M, my fiendishly clever daughter with an English degree and a job teaching math at a Montreal CEGEP, sends this just to mess with everyone’s mind.  Click the strip for original context. at XKCD.

Maybe things aren’t that simple.  That second quote above is from the astute Mrs. M herself, over Sunday’s Chronicle-Herald.  She’s an avid mystery fan, and knows when the obvious suspect is too obvious.  We’re bloggers, so outside of Igor’s spam-sense and Doom Family Values we’re free to think outside the box (or even outside the subject — this is the Monday open thread ;) )  No editor or publisher is going to limit our speculation, but just to get everyone warmed up with some plot-twist ideas, here’s a sneak preview of the movie version of the NYT’s & WSJ’s early coverage of the Madoff story.

… But at the very moment when the reader feels quite safe in an atmosphere of pleasurable reality and the grace and glory of the author’s prose seems to indicate some lofty and rich intention, there is a grotesque knocking at the door and the detective enters. We are again wallowing in a morass of parody. …

From Chapter 10 of The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, by Vladimir Nabokov (1941).

——————–

[1]: "Bernie Madoff’s life of make-believe", by Christopher Caldwell, Financial Times, March 13, 2009.

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7 Comments for this entry

  1. John M. says:
    March 16, 2009 at 6:11 AM

    I doubt I’ll be spending too much time contemplating where the dull boring 10s of billions of dollars of outflow went while the media is throwing high-quality dust like this into my face:

    “Madoff’s World”, by Mark Seal, Vanity Fair, April 2008 edition.

    … “If you want to know about Bernie Madoff,” said Mary T. Browne, the renowned psychic and author, who counsels many heavy hitters on Wall Street, “you need to talk to my friend Carmen Dell’Orefice.” She was referring to one of the original supermodels, the platinum-blonde beauty who had posed for Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, Francesco Scavullo, and Norman Parkinson, and who had been a muse to Salvador Dalí. …

  2. toysarefun says:
    March 16, 2009 at 7:27 AM

    When someone blew the whistle for 9 years already, I don’t believe anything else they say about this guy.

    Lots of people pleading stupidity and pretending they don’t know anything these days.

    Kind of like the airing of last nights 60 minutes.

  3. twist says:
    March 16, 2009 at 7:40 AM

    How is this for a "You know things are bad when…" [Hat tip L!]

    MOUNT GILEAD, Ohio – An Ohio city court says it will only accept new case filings from people who bring their own paper.

    Judge Lee McClelland of Morrow County Municipal Court in north-central Ohio says the court has just enough paper to handle hearing notices and other documents for pending cases.

    McClelland says the court will stop accepting case filings Monday because it cannot afford to reorder more paper. He told The Columbus Dispatch that the county still hasn’t paid the bill for basic supplies the court ordered in November.

    I wonder if Bernanke’s "Recovery in 2Q" comments are making the folks in Mt. Gilead feel better.

  4. twist says:
    March 16, 2009 at 7:50 AM

    I saw this "Bumper Sticker of the Day" on the Bubble Meter blog this morning, and thought this was pretty funny:

  5. John M. says:
    March 16, 2009 at 8:06 AM

    twist (#3) -

    “Too much,” says Igor.

  6. twist says:
    March 16, 2009 at 9:39 AM

    John-

    Wow- that was gorgeous.

  7. John M. says:
    March 16, 2009 at 12:10 PM

    twist -

    This isn’t (from the article, link at #1 above)

    They called it “playing the spread.” Five years ago, if someone had a mortgage-free home in Aspen worth $15 million, he could easily get a mortgage on it for $10 million at 4 percent interest. The carrying costs on that $10 million mortgage would have been $400,000 per year. By investing the $10 million proceeds of the mortgage with Madoff at a 12 percent return, the 8 percent difference between the carrying costs and the return would have given the owner $800,000 per year. One friend said, “A lot of people here own their houses free and clear, so that would be a home run.”

    Vanity Fair indeed. Igor says, “absurd!”

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