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Funny Business
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The cottage industry of spoofing Bernie Madoff is ballooning into a mansion industry.
First there was the Madoff toilet paper, then the golf balls ("sleazeballs"), the action figure you can pummel (The "Mini-e Madoff"), and now the new Madoff urinal cakes ("get p*#%sed at Bernie Madoff").
No one is trying harder to profit from this than Jay Berkman, aka "Fake Bernie", the son of a Madoff victim whom I've profiled before because of his blog. Fake Bernie wants to be a clearinghouse for all Madoff-related merchandise. He's even planning a fake IPO of a fake company, Madoff Mania, an enterprise which sells the aforementioned tchotckes. Earlier this month he laid out hiring plans for the company. "I always made it a practice of hiring people that didn't ask a bunch of stupid questions...That means I'm also offering a job to anyone from the SEC."
Now, Madoff Mania is reporting first quarter "sales" in a statement "leaked" to this intrepid reporter:
"Since introducing the premium merchandise line just two weeks ago, we expect online sales revenue to exceed $1 billion before we close our books on Q1 2009. The item with the best traction is the Madoff Toilet Paper. Customers include four major country clubs in Nassau County, LI, and Palm Beach County Florida. Each time the SEC or SIPC issues a "news update", we notice a considerable "uptick" in people running to the crapper, which otherwise explains the consistent returns we're noticing through reports provided by each of our vendor partners.
"Mini-e Madoff's, which debuted at the New York Toy Show just last week, have been the second most popular item. Last week alone, we sold more than 20,000 units, with more than half being shipped to an account in Africa. The buyer was anonymous and used his PayPal account, but we think there is a connection between the purchase and the latest news that more than $5 billion was reported 'discovered' in an Africa-based bank account that belonged to a since-deceased investor in Madoff's fund.
"Sales of Madoff Pisher Pads, our industrial urinal screens have been somewhat laggard, but now that everyone knows the rubber pads work perfectly as mousepads, purchase orders have really started to flow.
"Subsequent to the announcement on the blog re: MIDAS Fund (Madoff Investor Distressed Asset Sales), we've received more than fifteen inquiries from prospective investors and their interest to provide asset acquisition capital. We've had to turn back Allen Stanford's Stanford Investment Group, but John Paulson has approached us with a legitimate inquiry and is representing a consortium of global private equity firms that believe this is a unique moment in history to acquire trophy properties and jewelry collections for ten cents on the dollar."
MADOFF OSCAR WINS 
You may have missed it last night (I did, as I was hosting a Bollywood-themed Oscar party for 20 loud women), but Bernie Madoff apparently walked off with three Academy Awards. According to "The Street is Falling", Madoff's first award was Best Screenplay for "The Cheater," "a riveting story of the illicit relationship between a money manager and his financial statements (Kate Winslet won Best Actress for her portrayal of the financial statements)." Madoff also won a Best Supporting Actor statuette for "Bilk", "in which Sean Penn stars as a financier who steals $50 billion from his investors." And, finally, the blog says Madoff won a Best Director Oscar for "Scumbag Billionaire", "the heartwarming story of a man who starts with nothing, and whose investors end up with nothing."
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