Tuesday, December 30, 2008

How Many as yet Unpeeled Layers Does Madoff Have?

And how many yet-to-be-named liars contributed to his layers, to his gigantic grift?

Now that Madoff has supposedly come clean, has he stopped lying? Or is his present "candid confession" just a cover for his sons and other collaborators and even for himself? How many layers does this slimeball, and his scheme, have?

This is a guy whose whole life has been a web, an inextricable tangle, of lies for many years. Why should we expect him to become entirely truthful all of a sudden. With his poisonality, isn't he more likely to "come clean" as a maneuver to try to minimize his future legal losses? In short, he gives the public a bit of truth, bait, in hopes of distracting it, and the law, from deeper digging. It's a vain hope, but he has lived on lies and hope for many years, and they've worked out for him, bigtime, until now. So why WOULDN'T he use the same prescription again? This is a man who must feel naked, and even lost and disoriented, without thick layers of lies. And he probably doesn't feel comfortable without having a con, or many cons, going, as well. This is his MO, his whole way of being. He could no more suddenly stop being this way than Olivier could stop acting or Cheney could stop hating and, yes, lying, and being arrogant. These traits are integrated into who they are. Without them, they'd have no idea who they are, no idea how to behave, no idea how to fill the next moment, and the next.

And fasten your seatbelts. There will be revelations to come about many MORE collapsing, formerly-bloated-but-now-anorexic, Ponzi-atic hedge funds.

"Oh what a wicked web we weave, when first we practice to deceive."