New York has a very long piece, Monster Mensch, which profiles Bernie & J. Ezra Merkin. Psychoanalysis can get kind of old, the profile is more interesting in terms of the light it sheds on other figures in Bernie's world.
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The New York Times just published the definitive Bernie Madoff piece so far, Madoff Scheme Kept Rippling Outward, Across Borders. Reading about Madoff, I can't help but think about this conversation attributed to J. P. Morgan:
Untermyer: "Is not commercial credit based primarily upon money or…
There are now some articles which are detailing the other Ponzi schemes which are coming out in the wake of l'affaire Madoff. One thing that is notable: the next biggest scam is an order of magnitude less significant. That is, while Bernie Madoff's scam was on the scale of billions, the next ones…
Whenever I meet someone new and I tell them I'm studying psychology I inevitably get asked the ever annoying question "Are you analyzing me right now?" which of course always leads to the same response from me, "I'm as qualified to analyze or give therapy as an engineering student." Which is not…
It's always great to hear senior scientists talk about the bad old days, when one computer could fill an entire room and no one could say what genes were made of. Eric Kandel of Columbia has been studying memory since the 1950s, and won the Nobel Prize in 2000 for his work. These days he's…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0thH3qnHTbI
Oh sorry, that's 'Mash'.
One thing that this article brings up implicitly but hasn't really been discussed explicitly enough is the issue of how much of what happened with Madoff might be due to how the Jewish community functions. It is very trusting of its own especially if they meet certain expectations (such as philanthropy). I don't know how much this is unique to Jewish culture but it certainly played a role. If Madoff had not given so much to charity and had not been a mensch this likely could not have happened.