I'm sick of hearing reports that Mets owners the Wilpons lost millions in the Ponzi Scheme and therefore can no longer afford players and may be forced to sell the team.
Like any Ponzi scheme those who are first in make out like bandits while everyone else was holding the bag.
The Wilpons throughout the years invested $522.8 million dollars with Madoff. And over that time they withdrew $570.6 million.
Yes, they made money.
Now psychologically the Wilpons -- like many of Madoff's other "victims" -- took a huge blow because they thought they still had millions of dollars and all that went poof and disappeared.
But facts are facts, the Wilpons made money on Madoff, and may even be forced to repay some since they made out so well.
I hope that ends this discussion once and for all and get back to calling them cheap Jews when they fail to spend like the Yankees this offseason.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
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4 comments:
they still lost net worth of $500 million dollars. not sure how you can say they made money. by the way - losing $500 million dollars is more than psychological
I don't know how an accountant can say they lost money on the scheme when they withdrew more than they put it in.
The reason I say it's only psychological is because their statements were fraudulent. The money they were told they had they never really had.
They may have $500 million (or whatever amount) less than they thought they had but it was never backed by real assets so it never really existed and therefore could never truthfully be lost.
By the way, the trustee for this case is using this same method to determine winners and losers from this scheme.
the trustee is using clawbacks to reallocate what cash is available among all the losers. Except for bernie - very few winners.
If you put a $100 in an account and withdraw $10 a year in earned interest every year for 11 years and and the end of 12 years your balance is zero ... that would be a successful investment to you?
Obviously in your example that's not a good investment.
And Madoff was not a good investment either.
I am not saying the Wilpons didn't get cheated and robbed. Of course they did.
I am just disputing the claims that they lost hundreds of millions to the point they will no longer be able to operate their businesses.
It's sort of like mommy's view of investing. If she buys a stock for $10 and it goes up to $30, when it goes back down to $20 she says she lost $10 a share.
Investment losses/gains are judged at the end compared to at the beginning not on a day by day basis.
Over the years the Wilpons earned about 10% on their money. Not good over that period of time, but not catastropic losses.
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