Beruflich Dokumente
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Mahmood Pelarak
1/3/2009 at 3:19:00 AM - 1/5/2009 at 11:13:40 AM feedjournal.com
A Victim's Tale
(Portfolio.com: Top 5) reporter on the San Francisco partnership had consistently returned I had about $150,000 accumulated
Submitted at 1/4/2009 9:00:00 PM
Chronicle and then, for over 30 years, 15 percent to 16 percent a year, in Caroline on Dec. 11, when I
was simultaneously a science writer sometimes as much as 20 percent, received an e-mail from Phil, which
The victims of Bernard L. Madoff's at UCLA and a freelance journalist. and added that he had millions of his started, "I have some terrible news for
fraud includes no small number of My wife, Rachel, had worked full or own money in the fund. us."
boldface names and institutional part-time during much of that period. But he warned me that even he, The shocking news, of course, was
investors. We had bought a hillside house in with decades of experience, had no that Madoff had been arrested for
There are Hollywood moguls suburban Los Angeles in 1968 and idea how the partnership managed to fraud and that the many millions Phil
Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey were close to paying off our generate such high and steady returns. and his daughter, a successful Los
Katzenberg, financiers Fred Wilpon mortgage. Phil sent me a 73-page document, Angeles restaurateur, had been wiped
and Henry Kaufman, and actors Our two older daughters had which I never read closely until after out, as had Chais' Lambeth Co.—and
Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick. married, were working and raising I learned about my link to Bernard my $150,000.
Then there were banks like HSBC their own families, and our youngest Madoff. In the papers, I have learned Sure the loss hurts, and with the
and Banco Santander, and nonprofit child was independent, and likely to that Caroline was a limited partner in simultaneous devaluation of our
groups including Yeshiva University marry in the near future. the Lambeth Fund, operated entirely house, we have dropped plans to
and the Robert I. Lappin Charitable As a family, we were always quite by Beverly Hills investor and move into an upscale retirement
Foundation. disciplined about the household arbitrage maven Stanley Chais, whom community.
But a number of average-Joe budget. As a matter of principle, we Phil had known for many years. On the upside, our mortgage is paid
investors have discovered that they, never got into debt and we paid off Chais, in turn, passed on the funds off, I still earn money as a journalist,
too, had money invested with our credit card balances in full every in Lambeth, Caroline and other and I get Social Security. Although
Madoff. Their retirement funds, month. partnerships to an unnamed brokerage my retirement-savings plan with the
family trusts, and other savings I wasn't exactly a tightwad, we and investment firm in New York. University of California is sinking
usually found its way to Madoff traveled frequently overseas, but, as That firm, we learned since, was like a stone, I'm pretty confident that
through "feeder" funds, some of my daughters like to remind me, Madoff Investments; Chais had my wife and I will not go hungry.
which were run by friends, when they were kids and scrawled known Bernie Madoff for decades, I take some irrational satisfaction
acquaintances, or financial advisers. drawings, I made them use BOTH but the name never appeared in any from the thought that, for the first
Since they were not direct investors sides of a blank sheet. papers and was unknown to Phil. time in my life, I'm in the company of
with Madoff, their status in So in 1992, Rachel and I found For years, this opacity didn't matter. so many millionaires and billionaires,
recovering any money is uncertain. ourselves with an extra $25,000 in the Like most small-time amateur and we are all going down together
But there is no doubt that they, too, bank and decided to invest it, but investors, with a full work and family on the same financial Titanic.
are victims of what appears to be the knew enough to know that we knew life, I had happily watched as my The real losers, I'm afraid, will be
greatest Ponzi scheme in history. nothing about the market. stake steadily grew. Even with 25 the families of my three daughters,
Here, in his own words, is one So we turned to a trusted friend, percent of the profits going to Chais and my eight grandchildren, to whom
investor's story: whom we shall call Phil, who was our and 5 percent to Phil for their I will now leave a rather meager
I n 1992, when I was 67 years old, I sometime lawyer and a fellow administrative work, I averaged an monetary inheritance.Related Links
unexpectedly found myself with some volunteer in local political annual net return of 10 percent to 14 Smart Money, R.I.P.
extra cash on hand. During the campaigns. Phil had many years of percent. Sex, Drugs, and Options
preceding half century, I had served successful investment experience, and This compounded rapidly, since I Backdating
in three wars, earned a master's although $25,000 was pretty small didn't need the income to make ends Cost of Backdating: Six Months, $1
degree, married, bought and paid off potatoes in his league, we insisted meet. Since my investment was in the Million
a house, and put three daughters that we wanted into the game. form of an I.R.A. account, I didn't
through college. Thus I became one of some 99 have to withdraw money until I was
I had started my fulltime working limited partners in Caroline 70½ years old and started receiving
life in 1950 as a copyboy and later Investment Co. Phil told me that the mandatory minimum distributions.
Do ads work?
(Seth's Blog) click and revenue per click and be
Submitted at 1/3/2009 3:19:00 AM
able to make a smart guess about
lifetime value of a click. And if that's
If the local bank were offering a sale positive, buy, buy, buy.
on dollar bills, ninety cents each, how And if you don't know those things,
many would you buy? why are you buying digital ads?
Most rational people would say, When Amazon was at its key
"I'll take them all please." Especially growth peak, the mantra there was
if you had thirty days to pay for them. $33. They would buy unlimited ads,
So, why, precisely, do you have an of any kind, as long as they generated
ad budget? new customers for $33 or less each.
If your ads work, if you can There was a risk that $33 was too
measure them and they return more high a number for the business to
profit than they cost, why not keep sustain, but the ads were no risk at all.
buying them until they stop working? As long as they came in under that
And if they don't work, why are you number, there was unlimited money
running them?
The time-tested response is that
to buy them.
How often do you hear the Intel, Adobe plan a chicken in
you're not sure, that ads are risky, that marketing person say, "that's a neat
you can't tell. And for some sorts of
products and some sorts of ads, you'll
idea, but we don't have the budget
this year"?
every pot, Flash on every
get no argument from me.
Digital ads are different (or they
Shouldn't she say, "We have an
unlimited budget for ads that work"... HDTV
should be). You should know cost per (Engadget) watching TV on Hulu this could be
John Kraemer and Larry Submitted at 1/5/2009 1:19:00 AM
the push that takes online video to the
TV mainstream. Still, Intel must
Gostin: A case for Intel's been talking up the CE 3100 know that only Flash support so
(née Canmore) processor for quite 2008, we'll be expecting more
intervention in some time now, and with Adobe as its widgets to come.
Zimbabwe newest partner -- late again Yahoo? -- Filed under: CES, HDTV, Home
pushing HD Flash streams to Internet Entertainment
(World news | guardian.co.uk) connected TV's and set-top boxes. Intel, Adobe plan a chicken in every
Submitted at 1/5/2009 2:00:02 AM Frankly, we've already gotten quite pot, Flash on every HDTV originally
used to YouTube and other online appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05
John Kraemer and Larry Gostin: By video access in the living room, but Jan 2009 04:19:00 EST. Please see
any reasonable measure, Mugabe has with the first Flash Lite-enabled our terms for use of feeds. Read|
committed crimes against humanity system-on-a-chip due by mid-2009 Permalink| Email this| Comments
justifying an international response and everyone and their mom
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