7 January 2019
“The Devil’s in the Details (DS)” was originally posted on March 16, 2009, almost
10 years ago, when the secret world of exclusive investing for the uber-wealthy
had a spotlight cast upon its dark side.
The inspiration behind this Dream Sequence was the Bernie Madoff
scandal, for obvious reasons, and because it encompassed so much more than the
bottom falling out of an aristocratic pyramid scheme.
On the surface, we saw a high profile money
manager convicted of staging an elitist “invitation only” Ponzi scheme, replete
with a double set of books and unnatural rates of return. Beneath the surface, we
were offered a glimpse into the upper level psyche of narcissism and greed,
replete with double-standard deceptions and psychopathic programming.
So how close to reality were we?
The implosion of Bernie Madoff’s notorious operation
was clearly a sign of the times.
Just ask Lehman Brothers and Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide Financial. Madoff seemed
to be merely a micro within the macro - a micro reflection of how the macro has
been running things behind a myriad of micro frontmen for eons.
After decades of profitable manipulation, it’s
possible that Bernie could have simply succumbed to the consequences of his greed
and the insurmountable task of trying to polish a turd trapped in the sphincter
of the 2008 great depression. It could
be just as possible that Bernie was chosen in advance to be the scapegoat for
this particular market down cycle, not unlike a sacrificial lamb offered up to
appease the programmed demands for social justice from the sleeping masses.
The greatest irony of all in this bait-and-switch
is that some of Madoff’s highest profile investors were the very nameless ones who
picked him to run Their lucrative gains game in the first
place. He couldn’t have done it and gotten away with it for as long as he did
without this covert backing from beyond the highest levels.
By sacrificing Bernie as the face of greed -
thereby permanently removing him from the game board – They made it possible to protect Their anonymity as the game moved onto another board already established
behind another group of frontmen.
This strategy could only work as long as
Bernie kept his mouth shut.
The very fact that Bernie Madoff is still
alive in prison today is a testament to his ability to maintain complete
silence, even in the face of losing his wife to divorce and the death of both
of his sons, leaving him quite alone and friendless.
It would also stand to reason that the secret
second set of books the authorities presumably used to convict Bernie and attempt
to remediate investor losses was in all likelihood not fully accurate, at least
when it came to the naming of those who were to remain nameless.
What
we really want to know now is with whom did Bernie do the dark deal when he began
his lucrative enterprise in the 1960s? And was his sacrificial downfall his
reminder that privilege comes with a price and 2008 was his time to pay the dealmaker
for privileges rendered and favors granted?
Which brings us to the deeper question
going forward: When it comes to the business of the devil being in the details,
it’s been said that few can hold a candle to the Nazis and their anal-retentive
demand for detailed record keeping. Historians have even suggested that the real
power in Nazi Germany was held by the administrative clerks for it was their meticulous
recording of every detail that made many of the post-war criminal prosecutions
possible.
We would venture to guess
that little has changed in the bookkeeping practices of the post-war continuation
of the Third Reich, known to many as the Fourth Reich. Could it be that history
is about to repeat, or perhaps reveal, itself?
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© Copyright by Artist, KAd Collins. Tails of Darkness.
"What I was chasing in circles must have been the
tail of darkness inside of me."
-Haruki Murakani
|
The Devil’s in the Details (DS)
We had a dream……and in
that dream we saw Bernie (see
definition below) stretched out on his bunk after suiting up in the
standard issue baggy brown uniform of his new Metropolitan Correctional Center
home. His arms were folded beneath his head as he stared blankly at the empty
mattress resting on the bunk above him, barely two feet from his face. He was
waiting for the cell doors to release for the Center's pre-dawn breakfast call,
and the start of a new day on the inside.
Unquestionably,
Bernie’s current situation was a far cry indeed from the $7 million Upper East
Side penthouse apartment he’d been accustomed to. Lifestyle adjustments needed
to be made, especially since his new home work detail assigned him to Biffy
Patrol.
In our dream, we could
see confusion ripple across Bernie’s face when the prison Custodial Super slapped
a large rolling mop bucket and toilet brush into his hands. Without expression,
Bernie walked into the janitor’s closet to collect whatever else he thought he
might need to properly clean something he’d never cleaned before in his life.
Bernie was clearly
ignorant to the world of cleaning products, and before anyone would even
suspect what he was unwittingly capable of that day in the janitor’s closet,
he’d whipped up a chlorine bleach-ammonia cleaning concoction which rapidly
created a noxious gas that overpowered and expeditiously knocked him to the
floor, thus ending his physical life here on Earth.
Bernie briefly lay
unconscious before the ethereal lights began to flicker as his life force
separated from the 70 year old body with finality. Out of nowhere appeared
Charles Ponzi, Bernie’s personal escort and Angel of Death, with outstretched
hand.
Ponzi ushered Bernie
through a misty elevator door and pressed the button going “down.” Bernie would
now be answering to a new overlord, the Prince of Darkness, in a personal hell
of his own creation. Mr. D (as the Prince liked to be called) had a friendly
chat with Bernie as they walked down a deep corridor lined with doors on both
sides. Every door they passed was numbered “666.”
When Mr. D finally stopped
at the door numbered “666” belonging to Bernie, he opened it and extended his
arm in a welcoming gesture of entry. Bernie’s mind swirled with déjà vu’ as he
found himself walking right back into the very 7-1/2’ x 8’ janitor’s closet
he’d just died in. His new work detail would keep him busy for an eternity for
he was to spend it counting out $65 billion dollars, one penny at a time.
And then we woke up
and realized that the IRS has collected tax revenue for decades from Bernie’s
investor clients based upon illusionary gains reported for investments they
never even had. We suspect hell will need to freeze over before the IRS offers
to give any of that revenue back.
But what we really
want to know is which one of Bernie’s little helpers will be the next to follow
his lead?
BERNIE defined: Bernard L. Madoff:
Chairman and Founder
of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, 1960. Arrested on December 11,
2008 and sentenced to 150 years of quiet meditation, Bernie currently (2009)
awaits his formal induction into the Ponzi Hall of Fame. AKA: the Jewish
Treasury Bill and the new face of Greed. He was formerly a philanthropist, a
regular family man about town, and a prominent leader in the financial services
industry who gave everyone he was screwing the big KISS (keep it simple,
stupid) of financial, and sometimes literal, death.
