Everything Is Not Fine

Spoiler alert: If you’re the kind of blog connoisseur who absolutely hates it when a cheap wannabe blogger quotes himself from months ago to prove himself prescient (and really, who can blame you), then for the love of hump do not press the read more button. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Okay, so here’s what I wrote on February 3rd, 2011: 

‎”Sure, Bernie Madoff wouldn’t tell Fred exactly what he was doing. But what if there was a point where Madoff slipped up and alluded to it, or a point where somebody looking at the books notices something isn’t right? What would Fred Wilpon do? Would he turn his friend in? Contact the authorities? No, more like act like he never heard these rumblings. (…) If they weren’t active in ripping off people, and I don’t think they were, it’s sure as hell plausible that they were active in burying their heads in the sand about it, because loyalty cuts in that direction as well.

So what … do you think … is revealed today?

A former executive for a hedge fund started by the owners of the New York Mets warned them eight years ago that Bernard Madoff had to be doing something illegal to gain such high returns, new court documents allege. Noreen Harrington, a 20-year hedge-fund executive and former Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch employee who was trying to match the returns of the Madoff funds, quit her job as chief investment officer of Wilpon-owned Sterling Stamos in protest in 2003. That came after the Wilpon-owned funds placed money with a Madoff feeder fund over her strenuous objections, the trustee suing the Wilpons for $386 million claims.

According to trustee Irving Picard’s latest filings, Harrington met with Wilpon’s brother-in-law, Saul Katz, in summer 2003 and told him that the Madoff-related funds either had to be “front running” or their statements were outright made up. “Front running” means having knowledge of upcoming large trades and doing one’s own trades beforehand, because one knows the direction the stock price is headed. Harrington testified that Katz became “very angry” when she alleged Madoff might be front running.

Here’s how you know your case is flimsy: When the dumb ass blogger has the end of the movie figured out in the first half-hour. It means that your screenplay entitled “Everything Is Fine”, sucks. Still want to go on record and tell us that everything is fine? That your detractors’ testimony are “suspect” and “unsubstantiated”? Go ahead. If I’ve got the plot twist figured out, then we’ve all got the plot twist figured out.