The Comedy of the Madoff Economy

The unfolding story of Bernie Madoff has been fun to watch.

Bernie Madoff is, of course, the Wall Street titan busted for running a $50 billion dollar Ponzi scheme. It is fabulously ironic that Bernie Made-off made off with so much investor money. The Universe secretly runs on meaning, and people symbolically represent their true nature without even intending it. Assistant Treasury Secretary is Neel Kashkeri, as in Cash-carry. And Kashkeri certainly has carried out a ton of cash out of the Treasury to get snorted by his Wall Street pals.

It is sad/funny that Bernie Madoff is under house arrest, living large in his mansion still. How many poor black people are in jail for being poor? Ahh, but Bernie isn’t the class of citizen we use to fuel the great slave-machine of the Prison Industrial Complex. It reminds me of the proverb “They only hang the little thieves.”

So it was pleasant to see Bernie busted again for trying to mail $1 million in jewelry to relatives. Prosecutors want him to go to actual jail now, as this jewelry mailing violates his bail conditions. I wonder how they caught his wife at the post office? Was the box suspiciously heavy and jangling?

It is funny how Madoff perfectly symbolically represents the American economy. The US economy is running a giant Ponzi scheme. We have an $800 billion trade deficit annually. We keep borrowing, China keeps buying our bonds, we buy the cheap toxic crap. So, I guess the lesson here is: it’s only a Ponzi scheme if it’s small enough or after it goes belly up.

Another amusing story was the people sneaking into Madoff’s mansion and stealing a 5 foot bronze statue of Madoff! (I mean, it’s funny enough that Madoff has a statue of himself!) The statue was returned later with a note that said “Your days of plenty are numbered.” The note was signed ”the Edukators.” A German movie seems to have been the inspiration for this movie. (And the award for the guerilla marketing for film goes to....”)

It has been a pleasure to see Wall Street taken down a notch. These slick fellows with their suits have been racing an economic engine that’s consuming the world. Big Business has dismissively stonewalled on environmental regulation. Climate Change is breaking the sky and Wall Street blocks solutions. The thinking of paper pusher billionaires is sociopathically dissociative and cold-hearted and alienated from the Earth and the ecosystems that support biological life. It’s good that Wall Street’s blind confidence gets shaken now before we have full-on biosphere collapse in a few years.

Finally, it is joyful to see karma ripening for “The Masters of the Universe.” Wall Street has been dominating the world and the national dialogue for decades. Deal with the Climate Crisis? Nope, not economically feasible. Cutting down the Amazon rain forest? Nope, need the land for McDonald’s hamburgers. A terrible, foolish greedy mentality has run the world for too long. Robert Bly writes about “the greedy soul”, and how humanity is always struggling with an avaricious part of ourselves. The Muslims call these bundles of desires our 'nafs', and we purify them through effort and struggle to be good and generous.

Bernie Madoff suffers from a greedy soul. I feel a little sorry for him because he looks like a nice enough guy who won at the wrong game. He is just like thousands of other soft-handed, educated but amoral Wall Street money movers who have partied like rock stars on other people’s money for decades. And it’s satisfying to see them get what they deserve...

handcuffs.