Madoff with the Money

For some reason the sheer scale of this fraud caused me to become obsessed with this story. What I found most riveting was that the biggest thief of all (Picower) managed to escape much scrutiny (although his wife recently returned the 7.2 billion he took out in excess of what he put in). This book is clearly a quick patchwork quilt put out to capture the market before the time value of the Madoff option expired. There are numerous editorial errors (such as missing quotes in many places). Further, as mentioned by one of the other reviewers, there is quite a bit of repetition. Nonetheless, the author interviewed many old school chums and acquaintances of Bernie's who had some minor insights into his character. Some of this information I had not read anywhere else. Where the author falls apart is in synthesizing the assembled portrait into any kind of a deeper analysis. Further, he glides over some of the most fascinating aspects of the story that still have not been revealed. How soon did Picower discover that Bernie was running a Ponzi scheme and thereby exact his share? Was Picower (by far the biggest beneficiary of the scheme) really the brains behind the scam? How did Chais and Merkin, among others, manage to produce false statements to savvy investors for so dang long? Further Oppenheimer paints a rather benign picture of the brother and sons and never delves into their guilt. When all the facts are put together, the only conclusions one can draw are that Peter, Andrew and Mark Madoff were either mind numbingly dumb or willfully complicit. Read Harry Makopoulos's memo to the SEC where he essentially mathematically proves that Madoff is running a Ponzi scheme. One of the facts that comes out is that with his purported volume of trades on some days he might have represented almost 50% of the volume in some equities. Why weren't Andy and Mark getting that business? This point is especially powerful in the last few years of the fraud when the market was collapsing and the "legitimate" business was being subsidized by the Ponzi scheme. If the son's "legitimate" business was sucking wind why wasn't Dad diverting his millions of trades to them? I could go on, but Oppenheimer never engages in any analysis based upon these facts. Final analysis - if you are already conversant with the majority of the story there isn't much more here other than some information about Bernie's younger years. The most revealing information being the early years on Wall Street and interactions with real gangsters, incompetents and unethical traders. My opinion is that his Ponzi scheme was based on pure ego at first (since my guess is that he wasn't a very good trader but had a burning desire to be perceived as one). Later, he became addicted to the adulation and power and Picower became addicted to the money and effectively blackmailed Madoff into continuing.