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Funny Business
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AP Graphics Bernard Madoff |
He wrote back. We talked. He proceeded to give me a shout out.
Turns out the man behind Fake Bernie is a writer who worked in finance for over 20 years. He doesn't want me to use his real name, but turns out his father is a Madoff victim. "As soon as my father told me, I went ballistic, not only because of what happened but because I didn't know he had that kind of money."
He started the Bernard Madoff Scam blog as a "weird sort of catharsis." On the blog, his "Madoff" writes about everything, including wife, Ruth Madoff--"God forbid she should have cooked a few meals at home instead of our going to Coco Pazzo every other night! Go ahead, take my wife. Please!"
He writes about defense attorney, Ira Sorkin--"How come nobody is asking about how much I put up front for your retainer??" And he proposed a new $200 million MIDAS Fund (Madoff Investor Distressed Asset Fund) to buy assets from cash-hungry Madoff victims. The blog's creator told me he was a little concerned about making up any such fund, fearing some people in Florida might think it was real and "send me money."
The blog has nearly broken even now on ad sales, getting about 3,000 unique visitors a day from 75 countries.
"The SEC has been there 20 times," the author tells me. Naturally, he'd like to leverage it to something more profitable. Still, he says it will be challenging to keep the content fresh and interesting, as the overall story "is getting boring." By the way, he doesn't believe the total losses in Madoff's alleged Ponzi scheme will be anywhere near $50 billion, which he calls "an absurd number."
It's not clear what his father, who lost quite a bit to Madoff, thinks about the blog. The blogger jokingly suggested to Dad they go down to Florida and get ten investors willing to put up $50,000 each to produce a "snuff film" of Madoff which they could sell on pay-per-view. His father, who's very serious, very conservative, replied, "It's an interesting idea." But his father explained that the attitude among victims around Palm Beach isn't so much about vengeance. "They're blaming themselves for their stupidity." So his son then suggested (only half-jokingly at this point) they go to Russia instead to ask for money, where Madoff victims "won't have a problem with it."
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!
The Bernie blogger isn't the only one creating new content or products tied to this scandal and hoping to cash in:
Here, someone is selling copies of the complaint against Madoff on Amazon.com for $50
By the way, Ruth Madoff's kosher cookbook is also for sale on Amazon
Then there are the spoof videos on www.Funnyordie.com, like the one where Osama Bin Laden explains that Al Qaeda is broke because it invested with Madoff and Lehman.
Or this video where Madoff explains that all the money was in his right hand, which was bitten off by an alligator:
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