There has been so much in the news these last few months about the melt-down of the financial markets. Governments are bailing out large companies who you would never have guessed in a million years would be in need of a helping hand but that is the "horror" of present day financial affairs.
A couple of items caught my attention this morning on my way out the door to school.
Bernie Madoff. Some of you may have heard of him. He is a former investment advisor, charged with the loss of $50 billion dollars (yes billion) of wealthy people's money in one of the biggest Ponzi schemes ever conceived. A Ponzi scheme is an illegal investment operation that pays returns to investors out of money paid by subsequent investors rather than from profit. Not only did he rob from his friends and wealthy business clients but he "lost" $3-million (U.S) of his sister's cash in the Ponzi scheme. And yet the man is still out on bail living in a $10 million dollar apartment in New York City.
Also heard a story about an Indiana businessman whose financial-management companies were under investigation who its alleged bailed out of his small plane and let it crash in what appears to have been an elaborate attempt to fake his own death. He let the plane crash near some homes and he was lucky no one was killed.
People's lives have become so complicated and desperate because people they trusted with their life savings have betrayed them. Betrayal is the worst kind of human horror.
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