The 50 billion dollar Madoff scam- Does it teach us anything new?

So, a former well respected head of the Nasdaq stock exchange has admitted to his companies perpetrating a 50 billion dollar fraud, with the banks around the world suffering the biggest hits. Apparently Bernard Madeoff , sorry, Madoff, was paying investor returns ,not out of profits made by his funds, but with new investor money. He has described his organisation as “one big lie”.

Cries are ringing out that this is yet another example of a systemic breakdown in the US regulatory and securities market regimes. After all, this guy has been trading this way for years without anyone detecting anything was wrong!

But is there any new lesson to be learned from this con coming to the surface?

It became abundantly clear as the sub prime mortgage crisis unravelled last year that in this high tech, global economy, an unbridled and unregulated financial market can bring the rest of the real economy to its knees. It has to stop!