Academic

Letter to Douglas Shulman

Posted on May 22, 2009
May 22, 2009Via Telecopier and Federal ExpressThe Honorable Douglas ShulmanCommissioner, Internal Revenue Service1111 Constitution Avenue, N.W.Department of TreasuryWashington, DC 20224Dear Commissioner Shulman: I do not know whether you are aware that in July of 2004, in the midst of Harry Markopolos? revelations to the SEC that Bernard Madoff was operating a Ponzi scheme, the Internal Revenue Service placed its imprimatur on Madoff by approving his company as a non-bank custodian for IRAs...

The Four Torture Memos, Eichmann, And The Obama Administration. Part III

Posted on May 18, 2009
May 18, 2009Re: The Four Torture Memos, Eichmann, And The Obama Administration. This post has been written and posted in three installments that were significantly separated in time. The first, consisting of an invented Nazi legal opinion, was posted on April 23rd, the second, dealing with the new book ?Hunting Eichmann,? was posted on May 7th, and the third is being posted on May 18th...

The Concept of Net Equity Being Used by the Trustee and SIPC

Posted on May 15, 2009
May 15, 2009Re: The Concept Of Net Equity Being Used By The Trustee And SIPC. I have read the descriptions by Helen Chaitman and Richard Shapiro of their meeting with Thomas McGowan of the SEC, Picard?s written statement published in Dealbook, and various comments by members of the Google groups about the oral statements by Picard and Harbeck (which I did not hear but which, one gathers, pretty much tracked the written statement in Dealbook)...

Re: The Four Torture Memos, Eichmann, And The Obama Administration. Part II.

Posted on May 07, 2009
May 7, 2009Re: The Four Torture Memos, Eichmann, And The Obama Administration. Part II. On April 23rd I posted the first part of a three part essay that deals with the torture practiced by the American government. Since then I have been preoccupied with other matters; thus Part II was not written until now...

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Justice Jackson's (pre-justiceship) Speech of December 1936.

Posted on May 01, 2009
May 1, 2009Re: Justice Jackson?s (pre-justiceship) Speech of December 1936. Law Professor John Q. Barrett of St. John?s (barrett@stjohns.edu) is writing a biography of Justice Robert Jackson, perhaps the greatest writer ever to sit on the Supreme Court and the first American Chief Prosecutor at Nuremberg...

The Four Torture Memos, Eichmann, And The Obama Administration.

Posted on April 23, 2009
April 23, 2009Re: The Four Torture Memos, Eichmann, And The Obama Administration.PART I I have read the four memoranda that were recently released by the DOJ and authorized torture. Permit me to invent a similar but short memo that will allow the reader, without reading the approximately 120 densely packed pages of the four memos, to grasp their style, their character, their techniques, their aims, and, inherently and avoidably, the nature of the people who wrote or signed off on them: John Yoo, Jay Bybee and Steven Bradbury...

Re: Feeder Funds And The SIPC.

Posted on April 21, 2009
April 21, 2009 Re: Feeder Funds And The SIPC. I?m probably missing something, in fact I?m probably missing a lot, but as far as I know there has been little in the way of official release of certain crucial numbers related to the Madoff scam...

Was The IRS As Culpable As The SEC In The Madoff Scam?

Posted on April 17, 2009
April 17, 2009Re: Was The IRS As Culpable As The SEC In The Madoff Scam? This posting raises the question whether the IRS may be as culpable as the SEC and FINRA for the continued success of Madoff?s Ponzi scheme. If the possibility raised here turns out to be true, as I suspect will be the case, this would be a disaster for the country...

Madoff And The Mafia: A Mere Speculation Or Almost A Sure Thing?

Posted on April 02, 2009
April 2, 2009Re: Madoff And The Mafia: A Mere Speculation Or Almost A Sure Thing? I recently received a communication from a sophisticated, savvy individual who has much experience with how the world works. This person seems to be of the view that the Madoff scam may have been an organized crime operation, with Mafia corruption in Madoff and the SEC...

Letter To Judge Chin Regarding Madoff's Guilty Plea, And A Response To A Madoff Victim Regarding The Clear, Simple, Curative Bond Proposal.

Posted on April 02, 2009
April 2, 2009Re: Letter To Judge Chin Regarding Madoff?s Guilty Plea, And A Response To A Madoff Victim Regarding The Clear, Simple, Curative Bond Proposal. Appended below are two documents that were not initially posted on my site (Velvelonnationallaffairs...

Madoff: The Simple, Clean, Curative Bond Proposal That Has Been Completely Forgotten.

Posted on March 31, 2009
March 30, 2009Madoff: The Simple, Clean, Curative Bond ProposalThat Has Been Completely Forgotten.Permit me an observation about life. It is sometimes, perhaps even frequently, the case, when an unusual but reasonably complex situation arises, that people ignore the immediately obvious but rather simple solution in favor of complex possibilities that ultimately are recognized as either unlikely of success or overly difficult of accomplishment...

Is This Country Robert Welch Or Joe McCarthy?

Posted on March 25, 2009
March 24, 2009Re: Is This Country Robert Welch Or Joe McCarthy??Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty, or your recklessness.? ?I like to think I am a gentle man, but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me...

Is This Country Joseph Welch Or Joe McCarthy?

Posted on March 25, 2009
March 25, 2009Re: Is This Country Joseph Welch Or Joe McCarthy? ?Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty, or your recklessness.? ?I like to think I am a gentle man, but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me...

The Tax Views Of Deadeye, The SEC's Customary Action, And Losses of Non Madoff Investors.

Posted on March 24, 2009
March 24, 2009Re: The Tax Views of Deadeye, The SEC's Customary Action, And Losses Of Non Madoff Investors. Last Friday I received a phone call from a friend of 45 years standing. I'll call him Deadeye. Deadeye is a brilliant fellow. He is a crackerjack bridge player, finished first in his class in a significant eastern law school, and has spent 47 years as a tax lawyer...

The Serious Shortcomings Of The Guidance Issued On Tuesday By The IRS.

Posted on March 20, 2009
March 20, 2009Re: The Serious Shortcomings Of The GuidanceIssued On Tuesday By The IRS. Not being a tax lawyer, I am not sure that I understand all of the ins and outs of the revenue ruling and safe harbor procedure announced on Tuesday by Commissioner Shulman...

No Siree Nocera[h]. You Are Dead Wrong.

Posted on March 17, 2009
March 17, 2009Re: No Siree Nocera[h]. You Are Dead Wrong. On the weekend of March 7th and 8th, a conference on the ineptitude, inaccuracies, problems of and possible solutions for, the mass media was held at our law school, the Massachusetts School of Law...

Madoff Did Not Exactly Take It On The Chin Last Thursday.

Posted on March 16, 2009
March 16, 2009Re: Madoff Did Not Exactly Take It On The Chin Last Thursday. A few comments about last Thursday?s hearing before Judge Chin on the Madoff matter may be warranted. Reading the transcript with a lawyer?s eye, it seems evident that Judge Chin had made up his mind as to what he was going to do before he walked into the courtroom...

Re: Aspects Of The General Economic Disaster; More On The SEC's Culpability In Madoff.

Posted on February 26, 2009
February 26, 2009Re: Aspects Of The General Economic Disaster;More On The SEC?s Culpability In Madoff. Just as an orthodox blogger might, I am writing this post on an airplane. Several points will be made, each with relative brevity -- at least for me...

Re: Of Markopolos And Madoff, New Times And Conventional Wisdom, SIPC And Clawbacks, Equitable Estoppel And Declaratory Judgments.

Posted on February 23, 2009
February 23, 2009Re: Of Markopolos And Madoff, New Times And Conventional Wisdom, SIPC And Clawbacks, Equitable Estoppel And Declaratory Judgments. The hearings before Congress on the Madoff scandal on February 4th put one in mind of some pertinent, hopefully salient, ideas...

More On The Madoff Mess: A Post In Three Installments. Part III.

Posted on February 05, 2009
February 5, 2009Re: More On The Madoff Mess: A Post In Three Installments. Part III. I wish to conclude by discussing possible legislative action in Congress. Some of what I shall say has been discussed in my prior six-installment posting that ran from January 19th through January 24th...

February 4, 2009Re: More On The

Posted on February 04, 2009
February 4, 2009Re: More On The Madoff Mess: A Post In Three Installments. Part II. At this point in time, there still has not been much talk about lawsuits against the government or FINRA. I think the relative silence on these subjects to date arises from people?s shocked focus on more immediate questions: what can they recover quickly and how do they go about this; will the bankruptcy trustee try to ?claw back? from the innocent -- from people who were financially hurt or wiped out -- money they took out of their Madoff accounts in order to live; can they quickly sell their homes to raise money to live on; can they successfully get back into the work force, often by seeking entry level jobs though they are in their late 50s or their 60s or 70s...

More On The Madoff Mess: A Post In Three Installments. Part I.

Posted on February 03, 2009
February 3, 2009Re: More On The Madoff Mess: A Post In Three Installments. Part I.For the last six weeks or so, I have been dealing with a large number of people whom I never previously knew and who did not previously know me. They are victims of Madoff...

Investing With Bernie Madoff: How It Happeneed, What Happened, And What Might Be Done. Part VI.

Posted on January 24, 2009
January 24, 2009Re: Investing With Bernie Madoff: How It Happened,What Happened, And What Might Be Done. Part VI. The courses of action discussed here previously all have major shortcomings: they leave people very short of money to live on, they harm the innocent, they take way too long, they are uncertain...

Article: Madoff tops charts; skeptics ask how. By Michael Ocrant

Posted on January 23, 2009
MAR/Hedge (RIP)No. 89 May 2001Madoff tops charts; skeptics asks howMadoff tops charts;skeptics ask howBy Michael OcrantMention Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities to anyone working on Wall Street at any time over the last 40 years and you?re likely to get a look of immediate recognition...

Investing With Bernie Madoff: How It Happeneed, What Happened, And What Might Be Done. Part V.

Posted on January 23, 2009
January 23, 2009Re: Investing With Bernie Madoff: How It Happened,What Happened, And What Might Be Done. Part V. I turn now from preliminary comments to specific courses of action. As you will see, each course of action being generally discussed in the media today will be insufficient, will be too little, too late, especially because the law is not designed to handle a disaster of this magnitude...

Investing With Bernie Madoff: How It Happeneed, What Happened, And What Might Be Done. Part IV.

Posted on January 22, 2009
January 22, 2009Re: Investing With Bernie Madoff: How It Happened,What Happened, And What Might Be Done. Part IV.In the final three installment of the posts on the Madoff mess, I will discuss how much was stolen, where did it go, and what can be done for victims...

Investing With Bernie Madoff: How It Happeneed, What Happened, And What Might Be Done. Part III.

Posted on January 21, 2009
January 21, 2009Re: Investing With Bernie Madoff: How It Happened,What Happened, And What Might Be Done. Part III. The SEC?s failure to investigate and put an end to Madoff?s crime, its announcing in 1992 that there was no problem with Madoff and its failure ever to correct that statement, its consequent sabotaging of thousands of investors with the literal impoverishing of countless numbers and the crippling of many charities, medical research organizations and injury to pension funds, must be one of the greatest regulatory failures in American history, if not the single greatest failure...

Investing With Bernie Madoff: How It Happeneed, What Happened, And What Might Be Done. Part II.

Posted on January 20, 2009
January 20, 2009Re: Investing With Bernie Madoff: How It Happened,What Happened, And What Might Be Done. Part II. Over the years since 1995, Madoff, as often said in the media these days, made steady annual returns -- on which one paid ordinary income taxes, not capital gains taxes...

Investing With Bernie Madoff: How It Happeneed, What Happened, And What Might Be Done. Part I.

Posted on January 19, 2009
January 19, 2009Re: Investing With Bernie Madoff: How It Happened,What Happened, And What Might Be Done. Part I. As readers of this blog know because it previously was adverted to briefly, this writer has been caught in the Madoff mess. ?Victim? is, I guess, the word that accurately applies to thousands of us, even if the word is distasteful or, to some, whiney...

Preliminary Memorandum Of The Justice Robert H. Jackson Conference On Federal Prosecutions Of War Criminals.

Posted on January 09, 2009
January 9, 2009 PRELIMINARY MEMORANDUM OF THE JUSTICE ROBERT H. JACKSON CONFERENCE ON FEDERAL PROSECUTIONS OF WAR CRIMINALS I. INTRODUCTION. An extensive complaint seeking federal prosecution of American officials who ordered, authorized, approved or committed war crimes is currently being prepared...

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