Bernie $50 Billion: orphans and pensioners zero

How about that Bernie Madoff! Ain’t he a special fella? Turns out he’s been shipping out millions in household jewelry (including 18 of his favorite watches) to his beloved relatives while under house arrest in his $7 million prison. Bernie just can’t stop being Bernie. This time the game is Beat the Creditors. What a humanitarian. He’d be a hoot if he weren’t causing so much suffering. Next to the Bernie jewel heist story, in the NY Times, is a tale of a trusting 86 year accountant who has lost his entire $2.4 million dollar retirement nest egg to Bernie’s bust. Now the octogenarian and his 84 year old crippled wife may get evicted from the nursing home where they were hoping to spend their final days. Score another one for Madoff! Is there anybody besides Madoff’s relatives and lawyer who doesn’t think it’s time to toss this white collar reptile in a REAL prison for violating the terms of his house arrest?

As a lover of bad puns, I also want to salute this slimeball's name. Madoff, pronounced "made off," as in "Bernie made off with $50 billion of other people's hard earned money." If Dickens had used this name in a novel, people would have said it was too much. Bernie's destiny was writ large from the beginning, right on his birth certificate. He told credulous investors what he was going to do with their dough just as soon as he introduced himself. But greed, laziness, complacency, stupidity, gullibility, made them deaf. Which reminds me: what about the OTHER Madoffs? The ones who supposedly had nothing to do with this huge operation? What have THEY made off with, besides the jillions in jewels?