Let the games begin:
2:06 pm: Or... not.
2:08 pm: Ok, fine. We'll start. If you insist.
2:10 pm: Let's start right up with some procedural hitches... Spencer Bachus R-Alabama You know, since the 110th Congress has closed session, the Committee doesn't actually exist. The record isn't even official. (Oh, I love it).
Barney Frank, (God, is this guy everywhere or what?): Yeah, so?
2:23 pm: Now if only we hadn't taken all that money away from the SEC....
2:24 pm: Bachus: Hey, hey now, that's not what happened. The SEC had more funding than ever for the year in question. Duh.
2:28 pm: So far an incredibly drab bunch of rambling.
2:36 pm: Frank: It isn't the job of investors to detect fraud. (Uh, isn't it? Relying on anyone else (including the SEC) to do that work is everything wrong with the current system. Ugh).
2:39 pm: Oh no, Ron Paul. The fractional reserve banking system is a Ponzi scheme! So is Social Security. (Oh boy). We don't need the SEC!
2:56 pm: Dean Heller: Manners and expensive suits do not equate to integrity. Hah!
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 2:11PM
Bachus totes trying to cockblock. Watch Barney go.
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 2:23PM
Too unofficial. Didn't read.
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 2:23PM
I'd like to remind you peeps that Mr. Frank ran a male brothel out of his apartment in the '80s. Discuss.
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 2:24PM
Why can't this idiot pronounce Markopoulos?
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 2:25PM
@4:
Why can't Bush or Pailin pronounce Nuclear?
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 2:28PM
why don't they mention the overspending on the palace?
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 2:28PM
#3. That is why no one can say anything too bad about him.
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 2:29PM
@4:
Why can't you spell Markopolos?
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 2:31PM
Is Ruth in the house? Perhaps out on the steps suckin a ciggy?
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 2:34PM
can I sue the federal government for wasting all of my tax dollars, I would rather see my tax money go into making more nukes then listen to the big BF talk about how he is going to gum his next boyfriend on the house floor.
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 2:34PM
someone needs to tell Frank to shut the fuck up
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 2:36PM
Maybe BF is just posturing to attend Madoff's conjugal visits.
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 2:38PM
I would have voted for Ron Paul in a second, long live the weed king!
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 2:40PM
Did he just call the fed a ponzi scheme, I love this guy...and social security.
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 2:44PM
@4:
Why can't you spell Markopolos?
Posted by Anal_yst , Jan 05, 2009 2:44PM
Anyone see that stats from Harvard Prof outside the Hilton? Somehow, me thinks they've got the digits wrong...Tribune with a $250bn revolver? Whoops!
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 2:45PM
@14 He sure did! You should look up his speeches from the floor of congress on YouTube, pretty interesting stuff... Talk about calling a spade a spade!
Posted by Clown Capital , Jan 05, 2009 2:45PM
...Ron Paul arguing against the potentiality for the government to respond to the Madoff scandal through the creation more "oversight agencies" to preclude fradulent activity...
Apparently he doesn't understand the fundamental element of our economy. Allow me to recap...
First Mr. Paul, to quote the government scholar Sarah Palin, it's all about "job creation". And not just any jobs, but complex, extensive sinecures...
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 2:48PM
Too bad nobody will ever listen to Ron Paul.
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 2:51PM
@19 Well my only hope is that the one silver lining out of all of the nationilizing that is going to be thrust upon us over the next couple of years; is that maybe, just maybe, the pendulum will swing quite swiftly the other way to true free market principles and to the return to gold backed currency.
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 2:53PM
Someone please put a cork in BFs mouth
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 2:53PM
@19
Thank god no one will ever listen to Ron Paul. He is a lunatic who doesn't understand basics of the economy or monetary policy.
His main defense of going back to the gold standard is "well, uh, it worked 100 years ago". A guy won a Nobel Prize in medicine for the invention of the lobotomy 90 years ago, doesn't mean that we still do that shit.
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 2:56PM
@8, @15
Look it up. That's how the man spells his name. Markopoulos. http://tinyurl.com/7waloz
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 2:58PM
"I'm not a crook!" What an ass, I cannot take this guy.
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 3:01PM
Q: How many Senators does it take to make the following points:
1. (20% of their time) Thank you blah, blah, blah ...
2. This is bad, he did a bad thing
3. Lots of people lost there life savings, people were affected
4. This was a Ponzi scheme.
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 3:09PM
@5
Why can't you spell "Palin"?
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 3:13PM
Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 3:13PM
25 - zero, they're not senators
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 3:13PM
25 - zero, they're not senators. but thanks for playing
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 3:13PM
25 - zero, they're not senators. but thanks for playing
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 3:16PM
my bad on triple post (sitting the next one out)
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 3:22PM
Frank missed his afternoon retroviral cocktail dose to be there
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 3:31PM
@21 - he sure would like that. Oh wait. . . you said "cork." My bad.
Posted by Clown Capital , Jan 05, 2009 3:33PM
Apparently,
Rep. Paul Kanjorsky wants justice for the not-so-rich-anymore people who were victimized by Madoff and the American public who suffered through the obsessive media coverage of the scandal(in that order), not tomorrow, but by the end of todays session...lol
Posted by Anal_yst , Jan 05, 2009 3:38PM
More importantly, how the fuck does SIPC expect to be effective if the Madoff thing (with relatively few investors) would drive the thing into massive bankruptcy?
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 3:44PM
SIPC pays brokerage claims. Essentially protects you if your broker has run off with securities from your account. For which in fact there are tons of controls, making the SIPC insurance sort of like earthquake insurance in NY. Madoff scheme is a whole diff thing. SIPC's not going to pay out a cent there.
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 3:52PM
Jeezus Christ. I used to like Ron Paul but on this issue he is a fucking idiot.
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 3:55PM
Put him in the oven
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 4:03PM
Representative Mel Watt is proving the point that this is not an official hearing. He is wearing a fleece vest over a mock turtleneck. he looks like he is going fishing with the Madoffs after the hearing.
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 4:12PM
Is this Rep. for real ? Is he really this stupid ? SIPC is not an investigative body !!!
WHO ELECTS THESE F*&%$NG PEOPLE !?!
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 4:14PM
Did he really say "duhhh ..."
What a scumbag.
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 4:15PM
@40, the uneducated public... the scary thing is the more motivated uneducated public did the electing. The other 40% losers couldn't be bothered.
Posted by PhilSeltzer , Jan 05, 2009 4:16PM
Gary Ackerman Rocks!
That was his, "duhhhhhh", right?
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 4:29PM
Who is this mysterious client who lost his mortgage payment?
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 4:30PM
@42 and you are the least educated of all the members of the public.
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 4:41PM
Ruben Hinojosa (aka Miyagi) at the Madoff hearing:
Ponzai!!!
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 5:11PM
Several House members are ripping on Kotz for his intent to do post-facto reporting. But it seems that Kotz believes that he didn't need to do his analysis until after this meeting (how many times did he say "Yes sir, I'll follow up on that?")
I'm not sure who is right about today's agenda, but this seems like a pointless meeting.
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 5:15PM
@39 - Mock turtlenecks are actually fashionable...in 1995
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 5:17PM
Michael Bienes is a cheap hustler and immoral swindler who along with his partner in crime, Frank Avellino, has enriched himself by funneling money to Bernie Madoff for over 35 years. There is evidence to suggest his relationship with Madoff never ceased after the 1992 SEC investigation which revealed his firm to be unregistered. It appears he has merely moved his operations overseas. According to other recent reports, Avellinohas continued to swindle investors by funneling money to Madoff under cover of a sham operation.
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2008/12/michael_bienes_tied_to_bernard_madoff.php
http://mehtafiscal.wordpress.com/category/madoff/
http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Misc/misc.invest.stocks/2008-12/msg00878.html
http://postmanpatel.blogspot.com/2008/12/frank-j-avellino-bernie-madoffs-partner.html
http://www.ack.net/Avellino123108.html
Posted by guest , Jan 05, 2009 6:19PM
This fraud could not be detected? Bullshit. plenty of people knew it was a fraud.
For years. The SEC ignored the signs and many people who invested ignored them as well.