The genuine actor

Bernard Madoff has just lost one of his sons to his giant Ponzi scheme. 46-year-old Mark Madoff committed suicide by hanging himself with a dog leash in his living room on 11 December.

I read it from the Internet that someone calls it Karma, and another refers to it as the older Madoff’s real punishment.

I wonder what terms these people would have for those lives devastated by this monstrous defrauder’s “one big lie”. Surely they couldn’t be Karma or real punishment.

Now this most capable and smartest defrauder Wall Street has ever created is serving his 150-year term in prison, which surely is much, much longer than this 72-year-old can enjoy. He might have only a decade or two to puzzle over in his cell why this son of his was so weak and so silly to kill himself for just the stupid reason that “no one wants to hear the truth”.

If this weak son did really say something like this said to be quoted from his email, he was very wrong indeed. He just didn’t know people do want to hear the truth, only they can never be certain what they hear really is one, especially after they have encountered, or heard about this smartest defrauder humanity has ever seen. He didn’t invent the Ponzi scheme, he perfected it and re-defined it.

A genius thief he might be, he almost got caught by at least one even smarter fellow citizen, who blew the whistle to the Securities & Exchange Commission for several times. But they were just incompetent enough to ignore him and his evidence.

Bernard Madoff might have calculated that by the time his Ponzi scheme opens up he would have been just gone, not out of the States of course, as he simply didn’t see any need for that. He could freely enjoy his luxurious lifestyle and philanthropic fame in the fullness until the day he freely descends to the other world. When he goes, millions not knowing they have been swindled yet would feel obliged and like to see him off. Only after that those unfortunate investors would know they are victims of an implausible fraudulent scheme.

Now his miscalculation has earned him some earthen time to laugh at the Vanity Fair of the nation, the greed of the people, and also the incompetence of the authority, whilst enjoying life in jail instead of suffering in hell. Only it happened a bit earlier than he might have anticipated.

Some might ask, had he not thought about what the lives of his family would be like after he had gone?

It is inconceivable to me that such a great master of conning art would believe that he has a family. If he does he must have hated them so much as if they were enemies. He had them already destroyed right at the beginning when he started to make up his “big lie”.

I do believe that his son’s death wouldn’t even bring him to grief or regret the least either. This is no ordinary con man, but a very calm and skillful master with an extraordinarily clear mind. He certainly knew what to expect if he outlived his “big lie”. So he must have thought he could still be enjoying his fantastic life of a centenarian actor.

It was phenomenal that this monster managed to run his historic Ponzi scheme of Genesis scale for more than two long decades, far from flawlessly though. He might even have been convinced by his own smartness that in no circumstance should he worry the least about not being able to pay any redemption, while new funds kept pouring in blindly.

Some might think they have seen an extremely rare breed of narcissistic psychopath who likes to act 24/7. Well, if one just doesn’t think he can find a suitable term for this singular master of pretending, he might call him psychopath, but must have the term re-defined in the first place.

It was good that this well self-controlled monster had run out of evil luck so soon. He will be suffering every single day for the rest of his life. Now I begin to wonder if his genius did prevent him from foreseeing his miserable end. Prison has no place for such a convict. Sadly this 72 year-old has nowhere else to go. And certainly he doesn’t want to meet all those lesser con men in hell yet.