Interesting tidbits coming in about Bernie Madoff (read indictment here).

Specifically, we’re hearing that the smart money KNEW Bernie had to be cheating, because the returns he was generating were impossibly good.

For years and years I’ve heard people say that [Bernie's] investment performance was too good to be true.

One Madoff investor, himself a legend, told me that Madoff’s performance “just doesn’t make sense. The numbers can’t be straight.” Another sophisticated Madoff investor actually went through trade confirms in order to reverse-engineer the strategy and said, “it doesn’t add up.”

So why did these smart and skeptical investors keep investing?

One friend who saw this coming said Madoff had his own broker-dealer and a relative as his finance guy; another friend said he was suspicious because of the 1-2%/month returns with never a down month (much less quarter or year), combined with never showing a a down month (much less quarter or year), combined with never showing anyone his portfolio.

Got your own Bernie Madoff stories?

Bush is trying to clean up his record of de-regulating Wall Street and letting thieves like Madoff get filthy rich at the expense of the little guy. There’s plenty of people like Bernie who are running various types of fraudulent schemes without the SEC batting an eye.

Technorati Tags: bernie madoff scheme., I knew bernard madoff had a ponzi, smart money, wall street