I've never liked how the public generally seems to blame Madoff for the entire collapse of the economy. As far as I'm concerned, at worst he's a just a common crook, give him a 5 to 10, and at best he's a an anti-hero; a Robin Hood of the financial sector. He used the good ol' boy crony corruption on Wall Street as a cover to steal billions from the rich--the people who could afford to be stolen from. And some of them probably deserved it. Well, Robin Hood, minus the whole charity part.
The main point is: Madoff's crimes were almost diametrically-distinct from the problems that necessitated the bailout, but he gets painted in to it anyhow.
The man is shamed in the headlines as the worst, the most terrible because he did a simple crime that people understand that seems CLOSE to what was the problem on Wall Street.
But I still think he's a billion times better, far more preferable than the people who are still getting away with it; the executives with their bonuses, the members of the board who make out like railway bandits when not just their companies but the entire economy collapses due to their moral emptiness, their lack and lack and lack of the slightest shred of social responsibility--thanks Milton Friedman and co. for teaching financiers that they have less-than-no duty as human beings (it's like Spider-man, "With great power comes a great relief from all responsibility."). He's a trillion times more preferable than the people who, instead of breaking the law, buy the legislators and make their crimes into (mostly) legal profiteering methods. I will take Madoff any day over the people who've played with the market like it was some amusing Vegas game to fixed, and not the collected livelihoods of hundreds of millions people.
That is to say, he's a far better man than the people he was stealing from.
Madoff is a regular thief who wore the ruling class's bubble of security, their entitled disconnection from a world of consequences, as a cloak of invisibility while he snuck into their houses and robbed them blind. I can respect that far more than I can respect stealing from the poor. Sure it was criminal, but it was much more honestly criminal than what the rest of Wall Street was/is busy doing.
To the world, he's a symbol of corruption in the financial sector. To me, he's two things: he's a symbol for the public's absolute need for a single scapegoat, one man to serve as the fleshly representative for the moral failings of an entire system, and, more depressingly, a symbol for the horrific moral double-standards of the wealthy.
It's like this: the financial sector steals from EVERYBODY, making a very few people extravagantly rich, creating no value, acting criminally and bringing about a depression which affects the finances of just about the entire country and they get off with only--well they get away with it. Unless you count some congressmen making a few financial workers look like shamed children in an interview, and the possibility that major banks may have to ~`gasp`~ repay a loan as punishment. Madoff steals from the financial sector, and gets crucified in the presses has all his assets seized because mister we're going to make darn sure he pays back every penny he stole from those innocent men and women and on top of that he lands a longer jail sentence than a child molester a human slave trafficker and a murderer combined.
I'm not saying he should be released or anything (yes I am), but I think he's done Wall Street enough of a favor in taking the heat that he at least deserves some company in his jail cell--like every CEO who's made a profit off of a failed company. A Nice Start!
Sorry for posting a Madoff diary but I think about this every few weeks and I keep getting reminded when he shows up in all the political cartoons.