The Madoff conviction is no more than a Nuremberg Trial

Conservative estimates put the number of dead in the Holocaust at six million, the number of Nazis involved in these crimes as sixty thousand and the number tried and convicted at the Nuremberg trials was two hundred. Conservative estimates put global financial losses at $20 trillion of which Madoff’s share was $171 Billion and he alone has been sentenced to 150 years.

Trying and punishing Madoff while necessary and critical is no more than a token. His shame is the shame of an individual and was a far simpler swindle than the one created by the pillars of Wall Street. He is an old fashioned crook who used a ponzi scheme till the feeder pipe ran dry. But the chiefs of investment banks like Lehman Bros., AIG are guilty of creating a whole new system which is so complex and convoluted that even today there is no way to pin point the blame and the cause of the fall. They set in motion an avalanche the end of which no expert can predict. No financial model or historic precedent is capable of telling us when these “toxic assets” will be flushed out of the system so that clean money can start flowing again. Madoff was a tumor you could operate and throw out but these whiz kids and greedy people have created a cancer that has spread everywhere.

The chiefs of these institutions need to be brought under the scanner just as Madoff has been. Additionally, all those highflying executives who raked in not just handsome fees from clients, but also bonuses from their organizations, must share the responsibility. In their defense many of them say that they were merely carrying out orders. But so did all the Nazi guards who simply acted on command to save their own lives.

If these words seem a little harsh (after all we are talking about the loss of money and not of lives) it is time we looked at the human cost of these events. For millions of families this situation has had a very tangible effect- one that will live with them forever. Surely the conviction of one Madoff will never be enough to prevent this from happening again. So let us not congratulate ourselves on bringing to justice Madoff while the big criminals roam free.