Personal fallout from the Madoff fraud.
Sep. 22nd, 2009 12:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johnny9fingersOne of my chums (no names, no pack-drill) had an IT business that supplied hardware and support services to various financial institutions. From the end of 2006 to 2008 its major customer was Madoff's UK operation. My chum's' company had just installed expensive equipment in Madoff's UK offices when the balloon went up, and the equipment was sequestrated before payment had been made. My chum's company was then invoiced by the manufacturer who supplied the equipment to them. The upshot of all this is that his company went out of business just before Christmas 2008. For the past nine months he has been trying to find a job. He is now clinically depressed. He and his wife are selling their gorgeous house, and trying to make ends meet in any way they can.
When I was poor beyond belief, he and his wife regularly entertained me, often taking me out to lunch or supper; and stood me drinks; and bought me presents; and generally were kind and considerate far and away beyond the call of duty or the norms of friendship. As an addendum to this, when he and his wife were married, some years ago, he did me the honour of asking me to be his best man, which I was proud to accept.
I don't often wish I was really rich, but of late I've started to feel that if only I'd got my act together earlier I may have been able to help out both him, and a few other folk that have been overturned by the Credit Crunch, and assorted other problems. As it happens I'm comfortably off these days, thanks to Dad's legacy; but that doesn't allow me the sort of room to intervene in a meaningful way in a case like this, even if my chum would allow me to.
Bugger, blast, and damn.
I really think I'm going to have to find some morally acceptable way to become very wealthy....well, me and the rest of the decent people in the world.
Go well and do good things, and if tempted to do bad things to feather your own nest, remember: your will sins find you out, and you'll also be adding to the sum of human misery, not that such will inhibit those criminal types amongst us.
I wonder how many aeons in purgatory Madoff will have to spend to atone for his sins? I do hope he's hugely miserable in his incarceration and I hope the sun never shines upon him; and that people spit at his mention; and that he is shunned by the rest of the prison population: most of whom never had his advantages, abilities, or the pleasures of the good life he enjoyed.
The most lowlife murdering gang member from the ghetto is still more noble than Madoff: at least the gang members tend to respect and honour their own. But you all know this anyway.
When I was poor beyond belief, he and his wife regularly entertained me, often taking me out to lunch or supper; and stood me drinks; and bought me presents; and generally were kind and considerate far and away beyond the call of duty or the norms of friendship. As an addendum to this, when he and his wife were married, some years ago, he did me the honour of asking me to be his best man, which I was proud to accept.
I don't often wish I was really rich, but of late I've started to feel that if only I'd got my act together earlier I may have been able to help out both him, and a few other folk that have been overturned by the Credit Crunch, and assorted other problems. As it happens I'm comfortably off these days, thanks to Dad's legacy; but that doesn't allow me the sort of room to intervene in a meaningful way in a case like this, even if my chum would allow me to.
Bugger, blast, and damn.
I really think I'm going to have to find some morally acceptable way to become very wealthy....well, me and the rest of the decent people in the world.
Go well and do good things, and if tempted to do bad things to feather your own nest, remember: your will sins find you out, and you'll also be adding to the sum of human misery, not that such will inhibit those criminal types amongst us.
I wonder how many aeons in purgatory Madoff will have to spend to atone for his sins? I do hope he's hugely miserable in his incarceration and I hope the sun never shines upon him; and that people spit at his mention; and that he is shunned by the rest of the prison population: most of whom never had his advantages, abilities, or the pleasures of the good life he enjoyed.
The most lowlife murdering gang member from the ghetto is still more noble than Madoff: at least the gang members tend to respect and honour their own. But you all know this anyway.
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no subject
Date: 2009-09-22 12:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-22 02:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-23 10:54 am (UTC)Fingers crossed.