“Bernie Madoff, Scapegoat” by Michael Moore (for Time magazine)

Friday, May 1st, 2009    MichaelMoore.com

The following piece written by Michael Moore appears in this week’s Time magazine (and in full at Time.com) as part of their annual “Time 100” issue highlighting their choices for “The World’s Most Influential People.”

Elie Wiesel called him a “God.” His investors called him a “genius.” But, proving correct that old adage from the country and western song, you never really know what goes on behind closed doors.

Bernie Madoff, for at least 20 years, ran a Ponzi scheme on thousands of clients, among them the people you and I would consider the best and brightest. Business leaders, celebrities, charities, even some of his own relatives and his defense attorney were taken for a ride (this has to be the first time a lawyer was hosed by the client).

We’re clearly in one of those historic, game changing years: up is down, red is blue and black is President. Aside from Obama himself, no person will provide a more iconic face of this end-of-capitalism-as-we-know-it year than Bernard Lawrence Madoff. Read the rest of this entry »

By KATE KELLY and JON HILSENRATH
4th May
Wall Street Journal
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York shaped Washington’s response to the financial crisis late last year, which buoyed Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and other Wall Street firms. Goldman received speedy approval to become a bank holding company in September and a $10 billion capital injection soon after.

During that time, the New York Fed’s chairman, Stephen Friedman, sat on Goldman’s board and had a large holding in Goldman stock, which because of Goldman’s new status as a bank holding company was a violation of Federal Reserve policy. Read the rest of this entry »

CBS Exclusive: Investigators Digging Into Whether Execs Of Failed Financial Giant Misled The Public

NEW YORK, April 27, 2009     CBS News

(CBS)  A $5 million Connecticut mansion. A $4 million London townhouse. A $7 million English estate. The houses are owned by three men CBS News has learned are now the subjects of a Justice Department criminal investigation into how AIG crumbled.  Read the rest of this entry »

By Elisa Martinuzzi

April 28 (Bloomberg) — Milan’s financial police seized 476 million euros ($620 million) of assets belonging to UBS AG, Deutsche Bank AG, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Depfa Bank Plc as part of a probe into an alleged fraud.

The police froze the banks’ stakes in Italian companies, real estate assets and accounts, the financial police said in a statement today. The assets seized yesterday also include those of an ex-municipality official and a consultant, the police said. Read the rest of this entry »