Well, the headline says it all folks.  In this Times Online article, Wall Street Broker and former Nasdaq Chairman Bernard Madoff is about to (actually already has) screw countless New York socialites out of potentially everything they have.  Madoff had been pulling off a stunning years old Ponzi scheme that has reached over $50 billion dollars.  I don't care what era you are in folks, $50 billion dollars is a staggering amount of money to bilk. 

What is a Ponzi scheme?  It's like a pyramid scheme.  It operates within the investment world where people hand over their money out of greed.  They are promised they will get an abnormally high return on their investment.  Many early investors do get a large return on the money they entrust to the perceived arbitrage because it temporarily succeeds by way of the pyramid scheme concept.  People early on get their money back as promised because more and more people join in funding the operation.  In short the existing or old investors are paid by the new investors; principal is paid out as interest.  But eventually it collapses under its own weight. 

Now.. I said earlier that Madoff bilked $50 billion dollars.  The man the scheme is named after; Charles Ponzi--by comparison he bilked a paltry $15 million and it took 40,000 people to reach that number.  Imagine how many people Bernard Madoff has screwed at $50 billion dollars?  Some speculate that Madoff had richer investors and and his client list doesn't top more than a 100.  If that is true, then the wow... that is a lot of money to lose by a few people.  It is a staggering amount of money.  Greed people.  Wow.

So Madoff at 70 years of age was greeted by FBI agents at his swank Manhattan apartment after his children of all people, turned him in.  You have to wonder if because he is 70, he's just taking a fall for the kids. Because they are still the benefactors of of what money is left.

Madoff's victims span from Manhattan to Palm Beach.  There are a lot of terrified people right now.  I sense a lot of heart attacks and suicides may result from this immense fraud.

"Madoff's investors included captains of industry, corporations -- some of which are publicly traded -- that used Madoff almost as a high-yielding cash management account, endowments, universities, foundations and, importantly, many high-profile funds of funds," said Douglas Kass, who heads hedge fund Seabreeze Partners Management.

"It appears that at least $15 billion of wealth, much of which was concentrated in southern Florida and New York City, has gone to 'money heaven,'" he said.

But wait, there is more... This is NOT the only Ponzi scheme on my radar.  Check out the Citigroup/Robert Rubin in their own Ponzi-style mess.