Is the sun setting in Palm Beach?
A scam of astronomical
proportion
by Claude Seguy
Not unlike the Russian
born Sacha Stavisky’s scandal that shook the French Third
Republic
in the mid thirties with its get rich scheme, a new swindle of
international magnitude has shaken the financial world.
He was
not
one of those flashy individual but rather a low key and pleasant
individual who appeared to be a financial wizard.
He undoubtedly
had unfathomable secrets. From modest beginnings, he has entered the
world of the elite.
A very nice guy, one who inspired confidence.
Bernard Medoff , “Uncle Bernie” , 70
years old, built an
empire in which the very rich wanted to be a part. It took no less
than four million Dollars to be accepted.
He belonged to the Palm
Beach Country Club, known to cater to Jewish families, including some
of the town’s richest residents.
He had inspired so much
confidence that money was pouring into his operation. Charitable
institutions, retirement accounts, trust funds and the list goes
on.
All over the world banks have lost billions of Dollars in
the Medoff’s scheme:
The Royal Bank of Scotland admitted
that it stood to lose close to 600 million dollars. HSBC announced a
possible 1 billion Dollars in losses.
BNP Paribas and Nomura
Holdings, the Swiss funds Fairfield Greenwich Group, the Swiss Neue
Privat Bank, the Union Bank of Switzerland , the Japanese Finance
Corporation, Nomura Holdings. Real estate market Mortimer Tsukermana,
Austria's Bank Medici, Nobel laureate Elie Wessel, former owner of
football club Philadelphia Eagles Norman Bramana, or chairman of the
board of directors of financial units of General Motors - GMAC - Ezry
Merkina suffered and many charitable foundations.
The largest
collapse in the history of the world's financial pyramid could cause
another wave of panic among investors worldwide.
Film producer
Steven Spielberg, actor Kevin Bacon and a foundation run by the
Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel have all lost money.
95-year-old
philanthropist Carl Shapiro invested 250 million Dollars a week
before Medoff was arrested.
This humongous sting happened at
the tail of the other scandals perpetrated by the banks and loaning
institutions that collapsed the economy and plunged many nations into
recession.
Millions have lost their jobs and many are unable
to keep their homes. Government have to rescue the banking industry,
the auto manufacturers, etc…
An entire world has caved in.
The wealthy people of yesterday are about to get a taste of
the challenges facing their servants and other drudges and Palm Beach
will never be the same.
It will be years before things return
to a saner climate but confidence has been lost, probably for
ever.
Thomas Jefferson new it well when he wrote:
"I
believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties
than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed
aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing
power (of money) should be taken away from the banks and restored to
the people to whom it properly belongs."
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