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Archive for the ‘Business and the Economy’ Category

BP: It’s Not Easy Being Green

Posted in Business and the Economy, tagged , , , on September 10, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Did any of you see this “oops” moment in the investment world–how many socially responsible investors and “green” mutual funds were actually invested in disgraced oil giant BP when the Deepwater Horizon exploded? That means if you were an investor trying to plow your money into environmentally sensitive businesses, you might have been unhappy in March to find yourself part-owner of a giant oil company with a bad safety record.

We wrote a couple of articles about it at the magazine I write for, Financial Advisor, where I’m the senior editor. The situation is not as simple as it seems, and if anything, it should remind you that economics make even stranger bed fellows than politics. The reason many socially responsible investors were holding BP was not just so they could boost returns and screw the planet. It is part of a broader engagement to get those companies in the biggest polluting industries to play ball. BP had a stated willingness to lower its greenhouse gas emissions and discuss climate change, unlike some of its brethren in the industry. The bad news is that the company had a crap safety record. This set off warning bells, and many socially responsible funds earlier this year started thinking of dumping the company before something really bad happened.

Before they knew it, something did.

I’m sure The Wall Street Journal article on the story is better than mine, but if you do want to read my story and get more esoteric facts about how socially responsible funds score and rate their holdings, you can see it here.

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Snooki and the Tax Bills

Posted in Business and the Economy, Essay, tagged , , , , , , , on August 15, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Snooki is overtaxed. MTV

One of my favorite shows on television (let’s be fair, 50% of what I watch on TV) is “The Soup,” with Joel McHale, the kind of show that the brilliant (if right now sadly ill) cultural critic Christopher Hitchens might call “low humor,” but one that actually gives its viewers a way to deconstruct the shows that currently pass for cultural communication–mainly the malady of reality TV for which there seem to be no antibodies. For some reason, these shows fulfill a need in our psychology to watch a lot of emotionally limited and brutish people fight, fuck, fall in love, and get drunk without ever having to balance a check book or pay the cable bill. Why do we watch? Maybe it’s because we know that the sloe-eyed, pneumatic, contumacious and inebriated Snooki is slowly (very slowly) gaining the path to wisdom. This makes her picaresque journey useful to us in invisible ways. We now know how not to behave and hopefully not to hit a lady in the face, even if we think she has it coming.

There is another conversation going on in America that’s not on cable TV, but you are likely familiar with it if you have a living grandparent with access to e-mail, a back channel of communication where Americans buy their penis creme as well as similarly specious topical anodynes from anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist. Often these e-mails are spiced with the names of legitimate news organizations so that they look like properly vetted journalism. But they aren’t. In reality, they are usually written directly by special interest groups and are meant to fool the rank and file into making Chicken Little decisions about their money. My late mother, a tax preparer and bankruptcy attorney, told me that people were coming to her asking to irresponsibly liquidate their holdings because of what they read in these e-mails (and saw on Fox News)–decisions that could have destroyed them financially.

Thursday an e-mail came across my desk talking about the expiration of the Bush tax cuts in 2011. The e-mail informs the reader that marginal tax rates are set to rise and that folks at all income levels will see increases next year, that their family farms will all of a sudden be subject to a 55% estate tax, that normal folks will see penalties for being married, having children and owning businesses. In other words, we’d be going back to the tax schedules of the Clinton era. Advertised as one of the largest tax hikes facing average Americans in U.S. history, these increases promise a new recession because they will overburden U.S. businesses, murder stock prices, kill investment and strangle innovation.

In other words, all the stuff that happened during the Internet boom. And who should you blame for the new recession? That’s a no-brainer. Democrats! They tax and spend, after all.

Or do they? The Democrats actually have a bill to continue the Bush era cuts–at least for 98% of us. It would keep marginal tax rates at the same level for all but the top two brackets, the highest of which will go back up to 39.6%. In fact, the rich will still see a small tax benefit because of the way income margins are staggered (they see the cuts at the lower rates, too, until they reach $200,000).

The Republican version of this bill extends the cuts for everybody, of course, which increases the deficit by more than $36 billion and relinquishes almost that entire amount to millionaires, according to a report by the Joint Committee on Taxation. If you are a millionaire, I respectfully say to you that you are sitting on this money these days anyway more than you are investing it, and you don’t need it.

You don’t hear much about the Democrats’ extension from your grandparents because Americans tend to hew to the prevailing political narrative the same way they do to Snooki’s progress through the vomit-skinned hot tubs of Jersey and Miami. It is much easier to repeat the meme that Democrats tax and spend. It is a story line that writes itself in our heads and thus we fail to break down the numbers, even when they show the story is patently false. The Democrats are your mother. They want to save the world but can’t. They are idealists who will spend your money for failed ideas of the public good. They are the reason for the recession. (Hopefully you don’t remember back that far.)

Storytelling is one of the quickest ways people learn. But it also allows people to program us. What if I told you that I knew for a fact Snooki, in her darkest moments, turns to quiet contemplation and reads Baudelaire; if that were true, you would likely not accept that news, and MTV would fire her. We all need her instead to be drunk, vulgar and provincial because then it feels better when somebody hits her in the face. Two thousand plus years ago, we were the same way, only we wanted to hit that smack-talking bitch Antigone. These days, we want to smack Barack Obama in the face. We want to punish him for his eternal ideal of commonwealth. The desire is so strong we aren’t even smart enough to notice that the freakin’ taxes haven’t even risen yet. We argue smugly that the stimulus package failed because that fits the welfare mother storyline but we don’t acknowledge that obscenely low tax rates haven’t helped either.

The truth of Grover Norquist’s statement, cramped as it is, is that the Bush tax cuts, if left to expire, would indeed bring us back to Clinton-era tax levels. What he won’t tell you, obsessed as he is with chimeras, is that Bush’s tax cuts mostly helped the wealthy in the first place. What he won’t tell you is that Clinton-era taxation helped us balance the budget. What he also won’t tell you is that most of what we have to pay for is two wars that Americans overwhelmingly approved in 2001 and 2003. The U.S. government is not taking YOUR money. The U.S. government is asking you to pay for something you already bought. OK, to be fair, maybe it has put one other item on layaway–better health care. Why? You said for years you wanted that too.

But nobody can deny that your taxes will definitely rise if a gridlocked Congress cannot come to agreement. And it’s not because of oppression but because of game theory. Republicans themselves have a vested interest in killing the Democratic version of the tax cut extension. Because then they can claim it was an example of Democrats taxing and spending, which you know, is as true as the story of George Washington chopping down the cherry tree or Jesus walking on water. They only want you to go along with the Republican version, which will require the government to keep borrowing from the Chinese to pay our teachers, repave our roads and keep former employees of our nation’s manufacturing base from living in Hoovervilles. Why do Republicans want to keep borrowing? Because they like unsustainable short term solutions and because Americans don’t really understand what their economy is made of right now: credit based on past economic strength. Sooner or later, Peter Luger is not going to take our white credit card.

If you don’t believe,  you have only to realize that some roads in this country are going back to dirt, teachers are being laid off, and unemployment benefits are being threatened.

If you do understand this, you must be able to fight this storyline wherever you encounter it (from Republicans or “centrist” Democrats alike): “Your tax bill is not going up under Obama, Grandpa. But frankly, it should.”

If you don’t understand this, there’s a crab lice infested hot tub I’d love to sell you in Little Silver.

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U.S. Dentists Now Taking Payments Only In Gold

Posted in Business and the Economy, Health, tagged , , on January 24, 2010| 1 Comment »

Baltimore, Maryland (API) George Hunsacker, a 50-year-old mechanical engineer from Prince George’s County, was getting a root canal one day last November, and recalls that just as he was getting the finishing touches on his enamel polish, his dentist turned to him and politely asked how he would be footing the bill.

The question came as a surprise for Hunsacker, who had hoped to pay through his employer’s insurance plan as he always had. But his dentist suddenly turned belligerent.

“Insurance?” Hunsacker recalls his dentist saying. “Why don’t you just pay me in chickens? Do I look like a friggin’ idiot?”

The dentist then suggested that Hunsacker call his wife and have her raid all the gold in the house, specifically any gold that might have once belonged to a grandparent or that had been passed down as a family heirloom. When Hunsacker said that the only gold was in his daughter’s mouth, his dentist said, “Well you ought to send her over. I’ll get the pliers warmed up.”

All over the country, such stories have become commonplace as America’s dentists increasingly stop accepting insurance, vouchers and the almost worthless U.S. dollar and start demanding instead up-front payment in gold rings, bracelets, pendants, ingots, bars, and scrap. Gold, they say, is the most stable medium of exchange right now–perhaps the only medium of exchange–at a time when the U.S. economy is in a free-falling spiral into the abyss, its fiat currency a laughingstock of the world.

“There’s only one thing that makes a crown in my office, and that’s gold,” jokes Alec Brommelstein, a DDS in Red Bank, New Jersey. “If you don’t have some gold in your house, then I suggest you lay off sweets, because I’m not fixing your god damn teeth anymore.”

Economists are quick to remind U.S. consumers that no paper currency of the world has ever survived, and the U.S. dollar will likely be no exception.

“It’s been propped up for too long by foreign countries using it as a reserve currency,” says economist Ralph J. Exley, a FOREX trader and former head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Idaho. “Pretty soon though, the Chinese are going to be asking, ‘What do we need this shit for?’ America’s going down the tubes.”

“Kings have used gold since the days of ancient Egypt in 1500 B.C. to run their countries,” said Jack Angstrom, a dentist in Manhattan, Kansas. “Meanwhile, insurance company payouts have not kept up with inflation. That’s why I’m going to have to go in and rip this little girl’s teeth out without any Novocain.  It’s sad, I know, but it’s a fact of life.”

Angstrom then disappeared into a dental suite from which blood-curdling screams emerged moments later. Outside, patients lined up carrying the ductile, malleable and shiny metal in the form of scrap, jewelry and other melted down forms, items often carried in briefcases, on dollies and in baby prams.

Most dentists in recent surveys said that they saw insurance companies as hostile to their business models, with 54% of dentists calling insurance companies “scum bags” and the other 46% calling them “homunculuses with tiny vestigial dicks.”

“The insurance industry has been very good to dentists,” said Simon Kennedy, a spokesperson for the Association of American Insurers. “You can believe me or not. I don’t care. We have a shit load of lobbyists.”

Dentists acknowledge that gold has many drawbacks. It doesn’t pay interest–which represents an opportunity cost–and sits idly while other assets appreciate. There are also costs to hold it. However, Brommelstein says none of this will matter in the end as governments expand the money supply, making the U.S. dollar worthless at the same time global warming turns the world into a Malthusian wasteland where humans are hunted like game animals for sport.

“Insurance is a thing of the past,” he said. “The dollar is the thing of the past. Anything but you giving me the sweet precious luminous metal that is gold is a thing of the past.”

He then turned back to a phone call he was taking.

“If you want me to straighten your god damn son’s teeth for his bar mitzvah, I suggest you bring me some of that sweet, sweet gold,” Brommelstein said into the phone. “Take it off your wife’s god damned finger if you have to.”

Image: djcodrin / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Homeless Man Wearing Dow 10,000 Hat

Posted in Business and the Economy, tagged , , , on October 16, 2009| Leave a Comment »

New York (API) Symbolizing the hope of Americans everywhere, local New York vagrant Arthur P. Heidelman was seen Thursday afternoon wearing a “Dow 10,000” hat while walking down New York’s Bowery area, a signal, say economists, of inevitable economic rebound.

“I found this in a trash bin about two years ago,” said Heidelman of his hat. “Frankly, I don’t know what it means, but it sure does keep my ears warm.”

Heidelman, who was laid off from a job as a bricklayer 12 years ago, has spent most of his career in the last decade panhandling, cage fishing for blue crab at Battery Park, and leaning drunk against the bollards on the promenade walk when the local park police aren’t rousting him. He is also wanted for a few misdemeanors and is a deadbeat dad who hasn’t seen his family since around 1996.

“This just goes to show that America is on an upward trend and that confidence has been restored to the markets,” said former equities analyst Henry Blodget, now a finance blogger and editor-in-chief of the Silicon Alley Insider. “People have worried that consumers, who are in saving mode, will not be doing the kind of spending that will lead the economy out of recession. But the American economy is the comeback kid. All you need to know about it you can see right there on Arthur Heidelman’s hat, god bless him.”

Heidelman spends most of his days eating out of a dumpster in front of Taco Bell and does most of his bathing in a Central Park bathroom sink near the Bethesda Fountain. He often stays at the Bowery Mission. Sometimes, for loose change, he shows people where the movies Ransom and The Spanish Prisoner were filmed. He also is a jokester and asks many a passerby, “Won’t you please contribute to the United Negro Pizza Fund?”

The Dow Jones first made its trip above 10,000 in March of 1999, and at the time, New York Stock Exchange chairman Dick Grasso and city mayor Rudy Giuliani let loose a hail of the famous, commemorative blue hats down onto the floor of the stock exchange for awaiting traders. Since then, however, the Dow has sped toward the 10,000 in both up and down directions several times, and traders now pull out the hats mostly from mordant humor rather than enthusiasm.

That irony is lost on Heidelman, however, who says the hat is very nice and never fails to excite the envy of fellow homeless people.

“Somebody tried to take it from me once and I stabbed him in the hand with a corkscrew,” he said.

Even some famous Wall Street skeptics like James Grant of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer says that many indicators, including a slowing of the rate of decline in house prices, suggests turnaround.

“We can’t tell from just every indicator that a recovery is coming,” Grant said, “The rallying in equities and corporate bonds, for instance, is just one. But mostly I’m moved by the unmistakable sign I get when I see regular people like Arthur Heidelman walking down the street wearing a Dow 10,000 hat–or sleeping in it or maybe using it to swat at imaginary flies he’s seeing when he’s got the DTs. In any case, there’s a new mood in this country, and Arthur’s got me feeling that much more bullish on the economy. … You know, somebody really ought to give him a blanket.”

Grant acknowledges that unemployment is still at its highest in two and a half decades and that home foreclosures are still high as well, but he claims that the market is undervalued and the enthusiasm of everyday people is still clear. The bounty experienced by Wall Street banks and investors will soon be shared by all, he said.

“Employment is a lagging indicator,” said Grant. “Most people will need to grit their teeth and tough it out for a couple of years. I’d like to say to them, ‘If a toothless vagrant who doesn’t even answer the census can make it, so can you!'”

When asked if he would like to go back to work and take part in the rebound, Heidelman said that would be nice but also suggested that wage deflation had made it difficult for most people at his level of the economy to become active participants in wealth generation.

“You gonna give me $16,000 a year, m***er f**ker?” he asked. “If not, I like it fine right here in the park.” He then said he wouldn’t work anywhere that there were bats, birds or mice and then he nodded off, grumbling incoherently.

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What Traits Do Billionaires Share?

Posted in Business and the Economy on October 12, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Forbes recently profiled several billionaires on the Forbes 400 list and tried to descry the traits that make people ultra-wealthy. What are the characteristics shared by the richest people in the world?

–*They all worked at Goldman Sachs.

–*They all had sex with Anna Nicole Smith.

–*They all saw Nirvana back in the band’s club days.

–*They all keep their urine in descending order size jars.

–*They emit a dark blue flame when they burn.

–*They like to use countersunk rivets on everything they build — from computers, to airplane wings to hedge funds to Jane Russell.

–*Many of them either attended elite Yale fraternity Skull & Bones or the Hogwarts School, both of which provide members with an invisibility cloak.

–*Many dropped out of college when they could not find the “World Domination” courses they had anticipated on the curriculum.

–*They were all good at math, and thus somehow figured out there was no money in teaching.

–*If for some reason they should die in 2010, their holdings are not subject to the estate tax. A great incentive for a smart person to save some money.

–*They all live in the same house.

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What Surprising Things Have We Learned About the Economy?

Posted in Business and the Economy, tagged , , , , , , , on September 15, 2009| Leave a Comment »

–*Inflation might be higher than reported because the reporting agencies keep it artificially low.

–*The personal savings rate going forward might not be enough to re-energize economic growth.

–*Kanye West is an obnoxious bully who must compensate for low self-esteem in childhood by constantly feeling out and redefining his own ego boundaries without any sort of inhibiting social force to stop him.  Given his lack of self-understanding and the sense of powerlessness he likely feels, the gold paraphernalia he wears is of little real value.

–*According to the “efficient market hypothesis,” the market as a whole understands the true value of things because of constant adjustments, value that individuals alone may or may not understand. In other words, the market has developed cognitive thought and will rise from the murky depths like Godzilla and crush you.

–*But really, if the market always knew best, then tell me: Why in the hell are the Jonas Brothers still popular?

–*Too much government intervention hurts the economy. This is said with much conviction these days by people who live in trailers.

–*Supply side economic advocates say that increased private sector investment creates extra supply that foments its own demand. Keynesian economists, on the other hand, say that increased governmental spending on infrastructure causes a cascade of spending and growth in the economy. Either way, it tends to help Steven Spielberg.

–*People during fashion week look totally “money” as Vince Vaughn said in Swingers.

–*People who adhere with ideological purity to their small government beliefs will destroy the economy, the government, you, me and themselves before they ever let that particular conviction of theirs die–and thus let the intellectual insecurity behind it stand naked.

–*The market is efficient and people know everything they need to know to make an informed decision. Except, of course, Bernie Madoff’s clients. Boy, did those guys ever get fucked in the ass!

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Mixed Signals From The Economy

Posted in Business and the Economy, tagged , on September 2, 2009| Leave a Comment »

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 185 points on Tuesday, a huge slide that halted a week and a half of rallying. What’s causing the roller-coaster ride in the stock market?

–*Analysts realized that America had been leaning too much on Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus and candy necklaces to prop up the economy.

–*Despite its phenomenal success in vacuum cleaners, the Dyson ball innovation has proved much less successful in automobiles, cranes, nuclear fission and sexual intercourse.

–*Michael Jackson memorial magazine issues were not directly convertible to gold plate as many investors had hoped.

–*The market had in the last few weeks already priced in economic recovery, a manufacturing surge and an increase in home sales, but it had not yet responsibly factored in a possible attack by zombie Morlocks.

–*Americans might start showing responsible saving behavior and stop living a fat life of plenty on the backs of Saudi Arabian and Chinese debt. In other words, they’re just being selfish assholes.

–*Radio host Glenn Beck wants to kill everybody with a shovel.

–*You can’t get a decent burger anymore.

–*Banks are still failing. As well they should because sometimes we have to kill capitalism to save it, say American schizophrenics.

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Banks In Trouble

Posted in Business and the Economy, Comedy, News, Politics on May 8, 2009| Leave a Comment »

As part of its efforts to plumb the depths of the financial crisis, the Obama administration has subjected U.S. banks to “stress tests,” to determine if these institutions have enough capital on their books to keep lending and survive a prolonged economic slump. Regulators project that the losses at the biggest banks could reach a staggering $600 billion by 2010.

What are some of the shortfalls at the nation’s largest banks and where did these gaps come from?

–*SunTrust is short on money it lent to the Christian right for a now abandoned “Tower of Babel To Heaven” construction project, one that now sits unfinished in Topeka, Kansas after rising only five stories and which has since turned into a squatters’ town.

–*Northern Light Bank in Cincinnati, Ohio is short on credit card loans it provided to Ohioans to buy plasma TVs.

–*Fifth Third Bancorp has an estimated loss on credit card loans it offered to consumers with the strict stipulation that they were supposed to go build their own Interstate highway bridges with the money, not buy muscle cars, but then they went out and bought that god damned car anyway, which is now sitting in the driveway, its motor having fallen out and making our house an eyesore.

–*BB&T lost billions on the falling value of collateral on houses, and in a crude attempt at raising their value, tried to people them with a race of stunted, red-eyed Morelocks it had fabricated in a clone lab.

–*U.S. Bancorp failed to raise $9 billion it needed by breaking into the homes of its clients and shaking them down for blood money Mexican gangster style.

–*PNC Financial Services Group gave a billion dollar loan to its Uncle Ernie to get him back on track after his alcohol meltdown, but after three months on the wagon, he had a terrible relapse, and all the money was gone. “What did you do with the money, Uncle Ernie?” said PNC as it slapped the poor man silly. “What did you do with the fuckin’ money, Uncle Ernie, you god damned old souse?”

–*KeyCorp took the initiative and spent billions of dollars of its own money to rebuild the New Orleans levees so that they could withstand a category 5 hurricane, thus preventing thousands of needless deaths in the future–a loan that of course makes absolutely no economic sense.

–*Regions Financial loaned out billions for what seemed to be second lien mortgages on houses but which actually turned out to be a speculative investment in the cardboard refrigerator box industry, which now serves as the major source of America’s dwellings.

–*Wells Fargo lost billions through an insidious little machine called a “credit card” that through no inherent value of its own can be used to procure goods and services.

–*Bank of America fucking bought Merrill Lynch which was like buying a fucking black hole of fucking limitless debt.

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As Economy Worsens, Obama Eliminates Verbs

Posted in Business and the Economy, Politics, tagged , , , , , , on March 25, 2009| Leave a Comment »

(Originally posted Friday, January 09, 2009)

Washington, D.C. (API) As America faces increasing job losses and rising financial insecurity, President-elect Barack Obama has proposed the elimination of verbs in American speech as a belt-tightening measure.

“In an age of big American financial crisis, paper expensive. Verbs — unnecessary,” Obama said. “Predicates needless.”

The proposed measure would eliminate predicates and all words denoting actions or states of being until the American economy was well on its way to recovery.

“Americans strong,” said Obama. “Even without verbs. In the future, less verbal waste. And so more buildings, more food, more money. Hooray!”

House Democrats were fuming about the measure, which they said was proposed without their knowledge.

“No verbs? How no verbs?” asked Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “Communication limited now. Too difficult, speech.”

Obama said he expects the cessation of verbs, a major component in syntax, will save the government millions of dollars in paper and also help Americans increase productivity by spending fewer minutes per person on unnecessary verbiage.

“A travesty, this,” said former Nixon administration speechwriter and self-described “language maven” William Safire. “The end of knowledge. The end of reason. Devastating. Utterly devastating.”

Americans said that they would have trouble adapting to the challenges of a verbless society, and that Obama’s proposed changes would likely have them soon stooping over and muttering in some kind of strange simian Neanderthal-speak.

“No verbs too hard,” said law professor Felix Diaz. “Language and communication difficult.”

“No verbs? Not too hard,” said Lila Montgomery, a customer greeter at Wal-Mart. “Toothpaste? Aisle 3. Videotapes? Aisle 10.”

“Speech rugged, even when no verbs,” said linguist Noam Chomsky. “Grammar universal, innate.”

Verbs are words that vary according to many factors, including tense, voice, mood and aspect. Obama was unsure whether the moratorium on speech would extend to gerunds, infinitives and supines, verbs which can sometimes act like nouns.

“Maybe yes, maybe no! A conundrum!” Then he shrugged.

“America no money,” continued Obama. “Thus, America no verbs. Not until America money again.”

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Madoff Says His Only Goal Was To Make People Happy

Posted in Business, Business and the Economy, Fake news, Satire, tagged , , , , on March 25, 2009| Leave a Comment »

(Originally posted Monday, January 05, 2009)

Bernard Madoff Confesses That Ponzi Scheme Was Motivated By Need To Make People Happy

New York (AP) Disgraced money manager Bernard Madoff admitted this week that his sole motivation in setting up a giant Ponzi scheme, one that defrauded investors of $50 billion, was just to make people happy.

“I love to see people smile, and nothing does so more than guaranteed 10% annual returns,” Madoff confessed. “Oh sure, it looks like a mistake now, but you should have been here when Gladys McKetchum of Woodmere, N.Y. got her first statement in 1999 and realized she could retire in style. Her smile was like riding a rainbow. I thought: making people gush with joy is why we got into this business in the first place, isn’t it?'”

Madoff is accused of setting up a giant scheme to defraud investors by paying off the returns of old clients with new investors’ proceeds. A bank call on his fund, however, eventually caused his scheme to unravel and he had to admit to federal investigators that most of the money was simply gone.

“At first, I was doing it just because I wasn’t sure what to invest in,” said Madoff. “Then after a while, I just liked the feeling I got when I told some widow or some endowment or some charity that’s trying to cure AIDS that their investment had hit the boffo 10% annual return yet again for another year. It’s like you are spreading sunshine and giving people hope. I’ve got to tell you, giving gives you such a good feeling, that whatever it is, they ought to bottle it.”

“I hope hell hounds spend eternity eating his bowels,” said Grace Trombley who lost her life savings with Madoff. “Now I’m working at 7-11 in the 11-7 a.m. slot cleaning toilets. I hope his face is eaten by a demoness whose lower extremities are made out of screeching dogs.”

Madoff said that he’s enjoyed making people happy for as far back as he can remember. Among other things, he likes to flatter and tell stories and regale people in his lush houses.

“I like to use what I call the think system,” he said. “I’ve always believed that if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.”

“I remember a time when we used to cover people like him with molten black pitch that would disfigure him and rip off flesh and hair,” said Leslie Williams, a 90-year-old pensioner from south Florida. “I don’t see why we should treat him any better today.”

As a crowd of seething investors ripped off by Madoff gathered to protest in December, his wife Ruth came forward.

“Shame on you people!” she said. “Don’t you remember what this town was like before Bernard Madoff came? Do you? And after he came. Suddenly there were things to do and people to see and people to go out of your way for.”

Madoff said that what he wants most to be remembered for is letting people know that there is something more important than money in this life.

“It’s about dreams, this business,” he said as he faced years and years in prison. “It’s not just about 10% guaranteed annual returns, because let’s face it–there’s no such thing. Instead, it’s about people being able to dream. To believe in things and have high hopes. It’s about the kid with a quarter in his pocket who wants to open a bubble gum factory. It’s about the man who wants to retire to Florida and buy a boat and spend his days fishing. It’s about the man who wants a better life for his immigrant family. That’s what I most hope I gave briefly to all of these people I so ably defrauded.”

FBI agent Laura Gunderson had a tear in her eye as Madoff read his statement.

“We all have to hold onto our dreams,” she said. “I think that’s the idea Bernie Madoff has given me more than anything else. But if you’ll excuse me, I have to take this sad sorry fucker to jail now.”

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