Sepharad, in the field of drug enforcement, laws have been passed that allow the government to confiscate planes, vehicles, etc., that have been used to transport illegal narcotics.

The Fifth & Fourteenth Amendment bar deprivation of property without due process of law.  But in the case of individuals like Madoff, their properties are the product of their crimes.  If Congress had the will to pass a law that permitted the confiscation of property where it is proved that possession of that property was the result of such illegality, I see no reason why the same principle would not apply as occurs in drug enforcement.

The only question then would be what the government should do with that property, and your suggestion—housing the homeless etc, is, as I said, an excellent idea.

PS I am an attorney, but I am simply providing some musings rather than a formal legal opinion.

By Sepharad, January 4 at 10:07 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

cann4ing—You wrote “One could get lost inside of one of Madoff’s giant houses.” Too true. Since the falls of the merely greedy to criminally culpable corporate and financial folk, on the periphery of many stories these people’s single most common denominator is the state of being multiple-luxury-homed. This may sound unsophisticated, but wouldn’t it be great poetic jutice if ALL those homes were confiscated, slightly altered to accommodate three or four or more (depending on the size of these mansions) struggling families, or shared by many singles and twosomes currently without shelter rent free, in some kibbutz-like arrangement where everyone did what they could according to skills and physical condition to cover maintenance, food, clothing and daycare?
___________________

Fabulous idea!  And it carries with it a ring of justice that goes beyond the very long prison sentence these corporate crooks have coming.

Hey Skruff, wasn’t “there’s a sucker born every minute” W.C. Fields’ line, alongside “never drink before lunch and always have lunch sharply at 9 a.m.”?

I agree whole heartedly with Amy’s comments, especially at the end, when I was reading, I kept saying to myself where is the promised oversight regarding the dipersement of these funds.  Fine, if they want to bail out, which I am not sure I agree with in the first place, for the very reason that is being outlined in this article, but if they(congress)are going to do it, than at least some accountabilty. As usual though, no. The really sad part is the way the members of congress act like victims, as though they have no way to stop the train, the one they built and started down it’s path to its inevitable crash because the engineer is asleep at the switch.

With Madoff’s consent and probable initiative.

I think Folktruther the sons turned him in to shield their own sorry a$$es.

Fadel-
Thanks for the link.

Cann4ing, it is not yet fully known the relation of this swindle to Zionism. The cover story, that Madoff’s two sons turmed him in is obvious hogwash.  This was a family fund and the SEC received credible reports of irrugularities and did mock investigations.  The sons were corporate officers and had to be aware of suspicions.

Including the suspicious statement that Madooff doesn’t have any money left.  The treatment of Madoff smells like a coverup. It is yet to be determined what it is that is being covered up.

Fadel, while there are obvious links between Madoff and Israel, the current fiasco has very little to do with racism underlying the very concept of Zionism as opposed to Madoff’s amounting to little more than a common criminal—though perhaps given the scale of his scheme, one should regard him as an extraordinary criminal.

Indeed, there were no ideological boundaries for being a victim to the Madoff swindle.  The NY Times reported today:

“While many of the known victims…are prominent Jewish executives and organizations—Jeffrey Katzenberg, the Spitzers, Yeshiva University, the Elie Wiesel Foundation and charities set up by the publisher Mortimer B. Zuckerman and the Hollywood director, Steven Spielberg—it now appears that anyone with money was a potential target.  Indeed, at one point, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, a large sovereign wealth fund in the Middle East, had entrusted some $400 million to Mr. Madoff’s firm.”

The Madoff Ponzi scheme did not merely reach into Europe, as noted here by omop, but spread into Southeast Asia and then into China before the house of cards finally collapsed.  What is astounding is that this is the largest fraud by a single individual in recorded history, yet authorities have done no more than place Mr. Madoff under house arrest—not much of a punishment.  One could get lost inside one of Madoff’s giant houses.

In reference to the Israeli connection to Bernard Madoff’s scandal, please read the article at the following link:

http://www.effedieffe.com/content/view/5626/183/

Also, Robert has posted two or three articles related to this matter under the threads relevant to the Madoff’s criminal activity (i.e. economic terrorism!)

The following European website claims that individuals in and orgs in Europe were ponzied by Bernie and friends.

And that almost all of the $50 billion is safely hid in Israeli banks. Could that be the reason he is under 24 hour protection?

Enjoy:http://www.effedieffe.com/content/view/5626/183/

basho, my use of the words “Thieves in High Places” comes from Jim Hightower’s book by that title.  It is by no means limited to Wall Street thieves, and, instead refers to individuals who slide through the revolving door between the private sector and government so as to assure that the foxes remain in charge of the hen house.

The number of supposedly “smart” investors taken in by Madoff and his Ponzi scheme calls to mind the tune, “If I were a rich man” from “Fiddler on the Roof.”

“When you’re rich, they think you really know.”

‘“The insanity of sitting back while these “Thieves in High Places” raid the National Treasury must come to an end, now!”’

...the thieves are also running the national treasury
goldman sachs seems to have a goodly number of them in the old and the new administration and historically in most of the previous admins.

but then consumers consume - they don’t think. reap the whirlwind

By cann4ing, December 18 at 3:10 pm #

Fadel, if you have a source linking Madoff to Zionism please provide it.  So far I’ve seen nothing to establish that Madoff should be regarded as anything more than the same type of corporate thief we experienced with Ken Lay et al.
=============================
cann4ing, actually the Israeli-Zionist connection of Madoff was reported by a Truthdigger poster over a week ago, citing a certain Web-Site. It’s unfortunate that I cannot find the link. However, the following quotation is taken from that comment:
“Mr. Bernard Madoff as a citizen of both the US and Israel and that he served as the finance man for Mossad’s spy operations in the US since the 1960s.”

I will need more time to try to find the link!

Fadel, if you have a source linking Madoff to Zionism please provide it.  So far I’ve seen nothing to establish that Madoff should be regarded as anything more than the same type of corporate thief we experienced with Ken Lay et al.

The bad guys are falling apart

Ponzi scheme operators, Wall Street schemers, Zionists, Bush, Corporate America…

look at the bright side! Its payback time for American Greed.

(maybe we can still save our country yet)

Omop- do you happen to have a link to Russian intelligence reports that Madoff was the chief source of funding Israeli spying on the US.  Or, Robert, can you find any?

I would like Bernard Madoff to face a jury of his his co-Zionists and deliver a harsh sentence in favor of his many victims which include some Jewish charities!

And I would like the media people to start mentioning that Madoof is a “Zionist-Israeli economic terrorist” as they rush to do in identifying a “Muslim” or “Palestinian Terrorist”!

Would that be possible in this country of the so-called free and brave?!

Oops!  That’s “thief” not “thieve.”  Mea culpa!

A petty thieve steals $20 from the local grocery store and he’s hauled off to jail.  Madoff makes off with $50 billion and he’s place under “house arrest”?

To hippy pam.

Why is Bernie still walking around?........the below in this morning’s Boston papers should give you a hint.

“US Attorney General Michael Mukasey recused himself from the Madoff probe because his son, Marc Mukasey, is representing Frank DiPascali, a top financial officer at Madoff’s investment firm.

The Justice Department confirmed yesterday he was removing himself from all aspects of the case”

And dont forget that it was Bernie’s two sons, Mark and Andrew that actually, according to the msm, blew the whistle on dad. And that according to Russian intelligence reports Bernie Madoff has been the chief financier of Israeli spying on the US since the 1960s.

And that financing of Israeli settlements by US organizations have been adverseky affected by the arrest of Bernie Modaff.

Ergo one can expect future revelations as to why photos of Bernie always show him to be smiling.

WHY is “made-off” still walking around?not in jail?If YOU OR I did ANYTHING like this-we would ALREADY BE IN JAIL-BEFORE A JUDGE…...There is a guy here in MICHIGAN-bilked people out of money in a “real estate scheme”.....Going to trial….Oh yeah-this is one of “the bullshit bunch” and CANNOT BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR HIS CRIMES….WHY?????Because “ole bullshit” says so…....

Re Robert’s commnent, the SEC did investigate Madoff in the early part of the century but since the Bushites have put the corporations people in the regulatory seats, it was a farce.  The lawyer who headed the investigantion was literally in bed with Madoff’s daugther, whom he then married.  He found no wrong doing. 

That Madoff’s sons turned him in sounds like a media truth. They were corporate officers of the firm and their dad didn’t want them to fall too.

Madoff was an ardent Zionist and was conseaquently in the Bushite good graces, despite being a big contributer to the Dems.  And Obama.  A front page piece in the LA Times this morning indicated that many of the swindled were also Zionists, including various charities.  And Europoen bankers as well.

The US is corrupt from top to bottom and Obama is continuing the policies of Bush.

Interesting comments all around.  A true capitalistic society is indeed a giant Ponzi scheme.  Those investors who get in early usually make money.  Those who get in a little later make some money and those that get in too late lose money.  Such pyramid schemes can take anywhere from a couple of years to several generations to conclude.  Madoff’s scheme was in business for 10 years.  I would like to hear from the people who made money with Madoff——oh, that’s right they did funny things with creative tax accounting!

Anyway, the motto of the capitalistic society in the US is “caveat emptor.”  And this is why such crimes are treated in a lesser way.  By the time they bring Madoff to trial he may have expired.

i did hear that one person who did lose money claimed that the money was to be used to send his kids to private school now they’ll have to go to public schools——how horrible to be included with all those minorities!

If executives take fat paychecks and bonuses when their firms were failing so badly that they needed taxpayer money to keep afloat, they have neither proper morality or ethic.

if, as it appears, our congressional representatives are too stupid to hold them accountable (the Bush Administration has only enabled the looting)  ...  eventually justice will be sought on the streets, rather than through the rule of law

were i one of those executives,  i’d sleep with one eye open for the rest of my days, suspecting that street justice will eventually come visiting

It is not too late. A part of the stimulus package can still carry a hefty tax, narrowly targeted to the behavior that should be illegal anyway. If there are complaints that the Government cannot take the money with such specificity, they have already given up the argument by collecting the money with the same specificity.

A RICO investigation needs to be launched into the broad scale looting that was the Bush administration in any case. Unfortunately the Obama Administration has not indicated that such necessary “Change” is the sort that they believe in. Without it there will be no Justice and the coalition that he has put in place will not be there in four years.

By screamingpalm, December 17 at 1:42 pm #

I must be missing something here. I have been watching Democracy Now! religiously for last few weeks and have become a new fan of the show- and of Amy Goodman. From what I’ve seen she has been very critical of Obama and his picks so far (see Amy’s article: “Chevron in the White House”).

Where else can you see a press conference with Noam Chomsky, or interviews with Ralph Nader (aside from comedy show)? Guests that are shut out of the corporate-controlled mainstream media. Amy and her show seems pleasantly progressive to me.
____________________

You are not missing anything.  Amy Goodman is one of this nation’s finest journalists.  In fact, the only other journalist who perhaps exceeds her is Bill Moyers.  Her only agenda is to speak truth to power.  Link to her archives and you will find Ms. Goodman giving voice to those whose voices are not heard in the corporate media; you will find serious debates on the issues of our time.  You can find, for example, the occasion when, immediately after NBC excluded Dennis Kucinich to a presidential debate, Ms. Goodman devoting an entire segment that reiterated what was said by the mainstream Dem candidates and afforded Kucinich the opportunity to respond to the identical questions—answers which revealed why NBC, whose parent company, GE, is a major weapons manufacturer, did not want the public to receive a full airing of the substantive difference between Kucinich and the others.

Prole’s personal attack on Ms. Goodman is nothing short of bizarre and, I suspect, thoroughly misinformed.

It’s only human nature. There were two super powers and the winner has been besieged by the vultures who are always lurking to clean the carcass of largess down to the bone. The vultures are the haves and have mores, Bush and his base. They are beyond the law, morality, ethics, principals, scruples, or anything else you can name that we, the have nots, consider admirable in life. They’ve been waiting for their moment since Reagan, although the poor things got mildly irascible having to endure Clinton. But after him, they made damn sure (via the Rehnquist Supreme Court) that their boy was put in the White House and it’s been a feeding frenzy ever since. There are no republicans, democrats, independents, etc; there’s only the wealthy and everyone else and it has always been and always will be for humans, world without end, amen. So, thinking that the several hundred congresspeople in Washington, D.C. would choose the “everyone else” category, is really quite unrealistic. It’s what America is all about, wanting and having it all, right? Everyone’s a hero; everyone’s a star; live out loud. I don’t think there’s any question that America is so obnoxiously greedy as to make the world uninhabitable for any creature that needs oxygen to survive. And the kicker is…everyone wants to be like us!

I must be missing something here. I have been watching Democracy Now! religiously for last few weeks and have become a new fan of the show- and of Amy Goodman. From what I’ve seen she has been very critical of Obama and his picks so far (see Amy’s article: “Chevron in the White House”).

Where else can you see a press conference with Noam Chomsky, or interviews with Ralph Nader (aside from comedy show)? Guests that are shut out of the corporate-controlled mainstream media. Amy and her show seems pleasantly progressive to me.

On topic, her show today was a good one, and shows who really loses because of this Madoff scheme.

prole - we must be related because this is the second time in one day that you took the words right out of my mouth.  When is everyone going to stop making excuses for these Repubilcrat crooks and their “cheerleaders” who after voting for this massive bailout for their financier friends are now pretending to be so outraged that the money is not being spent and there is no accountability.  Did anyone watch Barney Frank on 60 Minutes the other night?  What a joke.  Leslie Stahl builds him up as this great representative of the people but when she confronts him with the question of why can’t you get Paulson to start moving the money, he responds with some ridiculous trite statement about trying to push a string.  Give me a break!  You just wrote and then voted for the POS and now you’re telling us you can’t do anything about it.  You don’t want to do anything about it!  The two major parties will play politics with this cash while the rest of the population suffers from your sqaundering of the economy.

Madoff warnings ‘ignored for 10 years’

Suzy Jagger, New York

“The world’s biggest fraud could have been averted if the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had acted on numerous warnings about Bernard Madoff’s financial impropriety years ago, the regulator’s chairman admitted last night.

Christopher Cox, the chairman of the SEC, effectively admitted mea culpa over the scandal after conceding that tip-offs were repeatedly made to the investors’ watchdog but never resulted in any investigation.

Mr Cox said that in less than a week of checks made into the regulator’s oversight of investment businesses run by Bernard Madoff, he had found that “credible and specific allegations” had been “repeatedly” brought to the attention of the SEC but that no recommendations had ever been made to investigate the accusations.

The admission comes a week after Bernard Madoff, a 70 year old financier, admitted to his two sons that he was “finished” and that his investment firm was nothing more than a giant Ponzi scheme.
Related Links

  * Madoff put under house arrest - in $7m apartment

  * Madoff ‘fraud’ reaches Shell pension fund

  * Banks lose billions in biggest ever fraud

He also admitted to his sons, who worked for him, that he believed that losses arising from his financial wrong-doing amounted to around $50 billion, representing the biggest fraud in history.

His investment firm, which has since been forced into liquidation, has triggered billions of dollars worth of losses among the world’s biggest financial institutions, charities, state pension schemes, and personal savings.

While it emerged last night that some of the allegations about Mr Madoff’s wrongdoing had been made as far back as 1999, well before Mr Cox was appointed as head of the SEC in June 2005, the 70 year old investor had only registered as a financial adviser in 2006.

The SEC has separately admitted that no inquiry into Mr Madoff’s advisory business was conducted even after he registered the operations just two years ago.

Pressure has been growing on the SEC over the last week to explain how the Wall Street regulator could have missed a collossal scam.

Christopher Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, yesterday demanded information from the SEC to ascertain how such a fraud could have taken place, a scandal which was only discovered because Mr Madoff’s sons contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

As a result of the “apparent multiple failures,” Mr Cox has asked the agency’s inspector general to investigate contacts between SEC staff and Mr Madoff and his family.

The inquiry is expected to include the relationship between Mr Madoff’s niece Shana Madoff and a senior inspections and examinations official, Eric Swanson, whom she married in 2007.”

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article5356348.ece

The suggestion by prole that Amy Goodman is a shill for the Democratic Party is so fundamentally absurd as to scarcely merit a response.

You know, prole, no one at TD would have any clue to the depth of your ignorance until you decided to post.

Interesting coincidence that the Big 3 aksed for 15 billion, what was remaining in the first 350 Billion installment. But then Ford Dropped out and the number went to 14 billion. Was that to avoid Paulson from claiming he needed the next 350 Now since the Autos wiped out his penny jar?
Did the Dems & Big 3 see the Con that was coming? Reason the Repugs rejected the bailout, so the Pres would not only ‘look’ good, but would force the release of the remain monies before the end of his term and before too many questions and demands were placed on it’s dispersal?So he could add the ‘disclaimer’ about compensation?
I Had no idea Paulson ALSO led back to Nixon…so many threads so many Crimes over so many years.
Ya almost need a Deck of Cards with all their faces and stats,Ah?
Of Course the Big 3 Execs could have always been in on the ‘sting’..How long ago did they know the industry and economy were going in the Tank? About the Same time Paulson & Berenke composed that 2 1/2 Ransom Note (death threat)six months prior? Get a last bite at the apple and finally bust the unions. Who are the golfing buddies of the Big 3 Execs mostly Republicans, and some ‘fork tongued’ Dems.
Honestly the entire thing reeks of ‘Titanic’, everyone grabbing the vaulables before they jump ship.And all US deck hands are left to go down with the ship. Don’t Tell Me None of them Saw This Iceburg coming!?! Many of US Did, we’ve been screaming for decades! Hellova Free market Democracy we got going here!Criminals divving up the booty.And every citizen and Worker is going to left Holding the bag and fending for themselves. Would a Free Market Democracy resurrect from it’s ashes? Really would it be considered the death of the American Way, or Just the Death of Corp Imperialism? We’ve Proven Our ‘Mustard’, Not many corps can claim the same. ‘Every Cloud has a silver lining’. ‘We maka No Money, We ah Spenda No Money’ Comprehenda? We built those companies with not only with our labor, but our spending Power.
Frankly I see no reason to bail out the Big 3 EXCEPT for the Workers.the finacnial’s should have been forced to ‘survive’, it’s their market, let them ‘die’ by it.Liquadate and return all Original investment money and everything leveraged off it is their problem. Remove the protective sheild of “Inc” and require top brass of these Corps to contribute to the asset pool with their personal wealth..None of US co signed a loan from a foreign investor. I don’t care how they get their money back, Only OURS they used to begin with. These financial ‘gurus’ have driven the Global economy into the ground, therefore the global community has every right to hold them financially & Legally accountable.
The Only thing standing between holding these Criminals Personally responsible is merely a Designation for tax purposes mainly. It’s legal ability to shelter the Management from personal Liability is only a matter of changing a few lines - disclaimers too- In fact we can make it Retro active if we Want to, It’s our Democracy, Our gov’t, Our Economy, Our International reputation. hangin’em by the gonads would do alot to improve all of the above,IMHO.

But we-the American Sheeple-will continue to allow our gubmint to get away with these crimes….Not one of us[I include myself] has the “cojones” to stand up-alone- and “just say no” to these criminals….Where is the GROUP that will STAND AND FIGHT??????I keep searching but I can’t find you!!!!

Madoff is out on $10 million bail, yet, his “Ponzi” scheme is broke?  His home and “assets” are being held in lieu of bail, but if he were a common criminal - instead of a white collar one - his assets would have been seized and he would not have a pot to spit in.  How long will it take before he is held on 24 watch, as he really ought to be thinking of suicide, I mean, either that or live with all those rich bastards wanting you dead. How does this guy have any friends?

“Put aside for the moment that these three all voted for the legislation.”!!! Why should anyone other than a Democratic Party media shil like Amy Goodman - or her ghostwriter - put that aside, even for a moment? It these three congressional chameleons - and others like them - who concoct these corporate welfare scams and then turn right around and try and protect their political backside by innocently feigning outrage and protesting the inevitable consequences aren’t held accountable themslves, don’t expct anything else to change. The Wall St. crooks will be glad to help themselves to anything the shifty Frank’s and Pelosi’s of the political world give them. “The law clearly needs to be corrected before additional funds are granted” ...but a massive amount has already been spent thanks to these jokers and their colleagues and we can’t get it back. It wasn’t a pilot program, it was a massive giveway for which these three themselves - and everyone else who helped ram it hurriedly through -, should be “put aside”. The congress “clearly needs to be corrected before additional funds are granted.”.  Pelosi, Frank, and Grassley, et.al. “might not be the best people to” disburse new taxpayer funds, when they’ve already done so much to take care of their crooked financier pals. And just like Frank and Pelosi take care of the Madoff’s and Blankfein’s - and vice versa -, so too you can expect Goodman to take care of Frank and Pelosi and Obama by “putting aside” their key roles in the bailout scandal. “The sums these”  congressional co-conspirators let these “titans of Wall Street [walk] away with are staggering”. “The U.S. populace”...“demand accountability from ..its representatives in Congress and the new Obama administration”... who have been “following the money” all along. Obama Copacabana bought ‘the house that slaves built’ by eschewing public funding and taking more campaign contributions from Wall St. than his Republica rival. His top economic advisers Robert Rubin and Larry Summers helped create the mess in the first place during the last Democratic administration. His chief of staff Rahm Emanuel was a big part of it as a former investment banker himself. Bernard Madoff has been a major Democratic Party donor for decades. So don’t expect much accountability from the Democrats in Congress and the incoming insider administration. But do expect Democratic Party cheerlesders like Amy Goodman to go on putting all that aside.

Aw, come on…your grandchildren didn’t really need that money anyhow.  Though it is interesting to note that none of these executives was made to promise that he would work for $1/year in order to receive the bailout funds.

With stories like these, there can be no doubt that the Wild West has been run without a competent sheriff. And in light of this fact there can be no doubt that the most urgent thing the Wild West need is a competent sheriff.

And as an educational footnote to the above statement, I would like to share with the Truth-diggers that the word “sheriff” is most likely derived from the Arabic “Shareef” which means “an honest, honorable and trustworthy overseer” as opposed to foxes put in charge of the chickens’ sheds.

Congress may have been duped but there can be no doubt that the Bush regime and Henry Paulson had this scenario precisely in mind when it inserted language that would permit them to by-pass restrictions on CEO compensation.

The only favorable provision in the $700 billion TARP fund was the fact that one-half ($350 billion) could not be released without further congressional approval.  Congress must not release one dime of those funds before Bush and Paulson leave office.  Indeed, it should not release one dime of that money to either Wall Street or the banks, and should, instead, redirect it to the stimulus package and mortgage relief for home owners. 

The insanity of sitting back while these “Thieves in High Places” raid the National Treasury must come to an end, now!