Septic Recurgitation

American Scofflaw

Mr Madoff founded Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities in 1960, but also ran a separate hedge fund business.

According to the US Attorney's criminal complaint filed in court, Mr Madoff told at least three employees on Wednesday that the hedge fund business - which served up to 25 clients and had $17.1bn under management - was a fraud and had been insolvent for years, losing at least $50bn.

He said he was "finished", that he had "absolutely nothing" and that "it's all just one big lie", and that it was "basically, a giant Ponzi scheme", the complaint said.

He told them that he planned to surrender to the authorities but not before he used his last $200m-$300m to pay "selected employees, family and friends".

Under a Ponzi scheme, also known as a pyramid scheme, investors are promised very high returns on their investment, while in reality early investors are paid with money collected from later investors.

The only question to ask is how many other Wall Street funds that seem to be almost magic in their performance are also Ponzi schemes?

And beyond that, isn't the whole Federal Reserve a Ponzi scheme? Under the Federal Reserve system, money doesn't exist until someone agrees to borrow and repay it with interest. Then the money is simply created out of thin air by the bank. To keep the system afloat, more borrowers must be found to allow the creation of more money at the bottom of the pyramid. When they talk about consumer confidence and expansion of the economy, what they are really talking about is the luring of new borrowers into the system. When they can no longer find new borrowers, the system collapses.

Which is what is happening now.