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NOTE 47. Free Bernie Madoff

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Free Bernie Madoff Bernie Madoff will spend the rest of his

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life in jail.

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Bernie Madoff stole billions from the customers of his phony investment funds, running a racket

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rather than a financial service.

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People who aren't even his victims are furious, and nearly everyone enjoyed a 10-minute sense

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of vengeance when the judge threw him behind bars for 150 years.

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Let me weigh in with a contrary view, Free Bernie Madoff, I say.

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His life is already ruined, he is a pauper, he will never again do business.

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From the innovative genius whose information technology in the 1960s became the basis of

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NASDAQ, he rose to the heights and fell to the depths where he will stay until death.

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He won't be able to be seen in public for the rest of his life without encountering

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That's one life to live, and his is now a complete wreck, going down in history as the

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worst financial criminal of all time.

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What then, precisely, is the point of jailing him?

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He's no direct threat to anyone.

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Society would not be safer because he is in the slammer.

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He is not going to rob people or beat people up.

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He might write a book and donate the funds to charity, or make some restitution to his

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victims.

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I, for one, would like to read that book.

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Instead, taxpayers will be forced to pick up the tab for his living expenses.

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Victims get nothing.

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That's not justice.

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That's inhumane for both sides of the transaction, Bernie and us.

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Will jail rehabilitate him?

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It's ridiculous.

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His rehabilitation, if there can be one, is probably already complete.

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Consider the dilemma in which he found himself.

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It began small, a simple scheme that anyone can play.

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His problem was that it worked better than most.

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Once his scam began, he probably hoped the markets would turn around and he would become

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honest again.

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It didn't turn out that way.

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Then he couldn't dig his way out of it, no matter how much he hated his life.

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That it lasted decades instead of days is a testament to his marketing savvy.

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But that's not to say that he loved his life.

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Spending the rest of his life in the pokey won't rehabilitate him any more intensely

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than life on the outside.

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The problem with prisoners is not that you are treated like an animal would that they

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had it so good.

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At the zoo, the animals are fed and groomed and cared for.

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They have value because they elicit affection from paying customers.

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Even slaves are in a better position, for at least they are valued to some small degree

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by Their Masters Prisoners, on the other hand, face a kind

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of metaphysical transformation.

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They go from being valued members of society to being treated like blobs of flesh taking

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up space.

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Their wardens see them as objects.

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They are abused by fellow inmates and live in a state of incredible degradation every

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day.

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All prisoners are therefore living amidst a kind of torture.

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It isn't modern, it isn't even medieval, it is contrary to all principles of civilization.

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Perhaps we should allow it for the most violent members of society, pending some other solution,

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but that doesn't apply to Madoff, and it doesn't apply to some three quarters of all

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the prison population.

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But still, we are all supposed to feel some kind of joy at his captivity.

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For decades, we've been told by sociologists that the real criminals in society are not

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muggers and murderers and rapists, but rather white-collar criminals who are capitalists

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sneakily stealing money using fancy finance.

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They are the ones who should be in jail.

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And so now, those educated by the sociologists, forever soft on real crime, but oddly tough

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on financial crime, have their way.

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As the bourgeoisie cries out for vengeance against a guy whose sole victims were the

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for the rich people who were his own customers.

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Can there be anyone who doubts that Madoff has been set up as a scapegoat, a person on

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which to blame the downturn so that we will be distracted from the greatest scams of all

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that enjoy the cover of law?

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So let us ask the unaskable, just how unusually evil were Madoff's actions?

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Not that unusual.

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In fact, the whole notion of paying off past investors with the funds of present investors

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is at the very core of the social security system.

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At least Madoff sought the consent of his investors, who let him care for their money

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based on their own volition.

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And at least he didn't attempt to defend himself with the claim that he was conducting

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Wise Public Policy