Madoff and the Scraper Bike

If you've been following the news recently, you've probably seen that Bernard Madoff will plead guilty Friday.

Now, for those of you who have not been following this saga, Bernard Madoff is perhaps the most successful thief of the last century (in terms of amount stolen, obviously, not in terms of never getting caught), and perhaps one of the most successful of all time, what with having set up a $64.8 BILLION dollar Ponzi Scheme.

It was a pretty slick operation.
1. Gain a reputation as a successful investor with your own trading/investment management firm.
2. Cultivate an air of exclusivity, restrict access and reveal little about your operations.
3. Have a nice office and do philanthropic work to improve your public image.
4. Continue seeking investors, while making them feel like they're lucky to be able to work with you.
5. Pocket their money instead of investing it while sending out statements suggesting unusually good returns.
7. Continue for 20 years, and make $64.8 billion of your investors' money disappear.


$64,800,000,000.



That's a lot of money. So far, two investors have committed suicide, and countless others have seen their comfortable retirement prospects vanish. When you make a Holocaust surviving Nobel Peace Prize winner start having punishment fantasies about you, that's a bad sign.

I've got to wonder how Madoff's going to be feeling tomorrow, since he'll plead guilty and most likely spend the rest of his life in prison.

Will he be miserable? Or will he feel a sense of calm, since he no longer has to deal with pretending to be the friend of the people he was stealing from, but can spend his old age as a convicted felon, being fed, housed, clothed and doctored courtesy of the government.

That desire of getting something for nothing is a killer.

Madoff wasn't the only one who had it either, he just had a worse case of it than most of us.

But that greed had been pretty widespread.

Right now, we're facing an economic crisis unlike any ever seen in our lifetime, because a whole spectrum of society decided to discard basic economics and common sense, and instead believe that real estate is MAGIC.

Watch this movie if you want to get a sense of how things went wrong:



A lot of people got greedy, and now we're all stuck with the bill.

So what's the alternative?

Having fun with what you've got.

Like the Trunk Boiz. If a custom car is too much for you, you don't have to get up to your eyeballs in debt, you can customize a ride you can afford.



Sure, fancy cars and big houses are awesome, but there's a lot to be said for living within your means and building from there.

That "Scraper Bike" song?

I'm movin' on my scraper bike
I'm cruisin' on my scraper bike
My scraper bike go hard
I don't need no car

Kinda ridiculous? Kinda like what you'd expect from some bored kids having fun on a budget?

Yeah.

Now they've got merchandise.

And a ring tone.

And an NPR story.

And Madoff's going to spend the rest of his life in prison.

Live within your means, build from there, don't get greedy, win.

It's pretty simple, really.