Roy Bean, the famous "hanging judge" of Texas, would be disappointed.
Most of the 3,000 readers who wrote in response to a recent column said hanging would be too good for Bernard Madoff. The same column asked readers to suggest the appropriate punishment for a crime so large.
Madoff is the alleged mastermind of a $50 billion fraud, a Ponzi scheme that left thousands of investors and many charitable foundations penniless. The dollar value of the crime is equal to three full years of all crimes against property in America -- every larceny, burglary and auto theft. That's about 30 million common crimes.
It boggles the mind.
Here is what I've distilled from the 3,000 reader notes:
Fed up
We're mad as hell, and we're not going to take it anymore.I simply can't publish some of the suggested punishments. They are too violent. Imprisonment at Guantánamo Bay or Abu Ghraib was mentioned frequently.
I believe we're at the beginning of something as powerful as the civil rights movement or the protests against the Vietnam War. The difference is that this public anger is far broader. Unlike the civil rights movement or Vietnam protests, this anger is harder to funnel into programmatic goals or civil action.
- Play the videos to the right for more investing news.
But Madoff is the $50 billion last straw. Hundreds of readers made leaps of association to corporate white-collar crimes, such as Enron and WorldCom. Or to colossal institutional influence such as that wielded by Fannie Mae (FNM, news, msgs) and Freddie Mac (FRE, news, msgs).
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Or to anger against executives being rewarded with multimillion-dollar payments even as their companies collapsed. Or to political ineptitude and corruption. Several politicians were mentioned more than once. Congressman Barney Frank may be the next Dan Rostenkowski. (In 1989, Rostenkowski, then the chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, was surrounded, heckled and nearly attacked by outraged senior citizens.)
Many readers made the leap from a criminal Ponzi scheme to the equivalent by government. Reader B.E. suggested that Congress easily topped the $50 billion fraud -- and did it annually -- by putting IOUs in the Social Security trust fund and spending the surplus employment tax receipts.
Time to get tough
Enforced poverty may be the new punishment.Few readers felt that conventional white-collar imprisonment was appropriate for a crime this large.
One pointed out that Jeffrey Skilling's sentence for Enron's fraud was nothing compared with the damage done to thousands of workers' lives. People are looking for something tougher and more visceral.
Video on MSN Money
Madoff gets a breakThe hedge fund operator at the center of a $50 billion scandal remains confined to his luxury apartment after a judge decides not to jail him (Jan. 12).
Many suggested that Madoff and every member of his family be stripped of all wealth. Beyond that, many suggested that Madoff be forced to live with, and serve, the poorest people in our society. Reader L.B., for instance, wrote that white-collar criminals should be forced to learn what real poverty means. She suggested cleaning toilets at a homeless shelter, for life.
Continued: Financial death penalty?
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