After reading ‘Madoff and His Models’ in The New Yorker…

I’m convinced more than ever that Bernie Madoff is still running his ultimate scam. The article details the machinations of the original Ponzi and another fraudulent wannabe, Ivar Kreuger.  The delusion, the greed, the entitlement.

I’m not a psychologist or psychotherapist but would love to read a clinical take on Madoff’s  behavior and his family members:

Forever dependent on a growing supply of fresh victims, Ponzi schemers can’t be fussy about their clients are typically in an unseemly hurry to snare them.  Here, Madoff made his audacious innovation.  Instead of openly courting investors, he pretended to fend them off. Back in the nineteen-twenties, sophisticated investors joined together in pools that manipulated individual stocks, and such funds acquired a certain cachet. Something similar happened in recent years with hedge funds, which retained snob appeal even when returns flagged.  Madoff made it seem impossibly difficult to invest with him.  As a rule his fund was close to new investors, requiring special introductions to the club. “I know Bernie, I can get you in” was the open sesame whispered throughout the world of Jewish society, where “Uncle Bernie” was affectionately touted as “the Jewish bond.”  The aura of exclusivity was bogus, of course: he ended up with almost five thousand client accounts.

I’m fascinated by any person who can convince themselves that they are honorable and decent while committing such amoral acts.  This delusion, evidenced from home to the workplace, from reality to plotted reality, has been the most damaging virus to American culture.

Madoff and His Models [The New Yorker, subscription required]

Why, Caroline, why?

I finally read The New Yorker and New York magazine’s deconstruction of Caroline Kennedy’s failed bid for Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat and I still don’t get why she would even be interested in having to work.

From where I type, Kennedy is a woman who is the ideal person for The Real Housewives of New York (since she is who she is, she would never ever do it) because she has the entire package that has made many aspirational heads spin:

• Privilege
• Wealth
• Status

Of course, Kennedy could have been sparked by civic duty due to her wholehearted embrace of Barack Obama’s Presidential campaign but if that were true, wouldn’t she have been a bit more jazzed about becoming Senator:

A couple of weeks before Christmas, just before she declared her interest in the Senate, she went to the birthday party of a friend she’d known since high school. Several other of her oldest, most trusted friends were there. All of them thought she’d be a great senator; they were very supportive of her making a bid. But when they asked her about her decision to run she looked scared and panicky and couldn’t talk about it. She folded her arms over her chest, a guest recalled, and disappeared into herself—a characteristic gesture. Even before things started to go sour, in other words, she was apprehensive about what lay ahead. Then, a week or two later, after the tabloids and the upstate papers had at her, she attended another friend’s birthday party and looked as though she’d just disembarked from a very steep and terrifying roller coaster: shaken, startled, roughed up.

Does that sound like someone who is gung ho to step into the political spotlight?  Also, why would anyone with the options of Kennedy willingly choose to play second fiddle to Senator Charles Schumer?  Remember, Kennedy has access to the new President that most Senators must envy in addition to her family’s political pedigree.

Why exactly would this person need a Senate seat?

Unless she wanted to complete the troika that eludes so many people. Take it away Lil Kim!

First you get the money
Then you get the motherf–kin’ power
And after you get the f–kin’ power
You get the f–kin’ ni–az to respect you

Ah, respect.  Maybe, after years spent behind the scenes protecting and promoting the legacies of her father, mother and brother and raising a family,  this next career move was supposed to give Kennedy a respect that I assumed she always had?  I admit I’m viewing this through a bias of what more could a Caroline Kennedy want (other than her immediate family to still be alive) when she has so much.

And I’m back to why, Caroline, why.

In the Spotlight, and Seared by the Glare [Washington Post]

Band of the Day – Coldplay

Because a certain critic took so much pleasure in the break-up rumors!

Coldplay break-up rumors surface on the Internet [Prefix Mag]

Link Slut, November 14

Is it wrong that I don’t care Lebron has found the courage to support Barack Obama? Wealthy and indulged athlete wakes up and realizes that there’s more to the world than him getting a championship ring.  Oh gawd. [Page 2]

Michelle: The Book Liza Mundy, Michelle Obama’s unauthorized biographer is interviewed. [Democracy Now!] Excerpt:

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the—well, it has become infamous—thesis of Michelle Obama, well, then Michelle Robinson, which I thought was very interesting, when you laid out exactly what she was trying to do in the survey that she conducted of black Princeton alumni.

LIZA MUNDY: Well, I think that every Princeton alumnus felt—you know, we all felt a collective shudder when we learned that her thesis had been posted online, because, you know, anybody who’s written a senior thesis would identify. You know, God forbid my thesis ever be posted online. I know the circumstances under which they’re written, and, you know, paragraphs written at the last minute at the suggestion of your adviser. And then twenty-five years later, somebody’s picking over the sentences, you know, to use them against your husband. It’s really just mindboggling.

Luxuriating in the language, passion and clarity of President Elect Barack Obama’s acceptance speech [The New Yorker]

I feel bad that I want to see this movie.  It makes me feel like some person trapped in a time warp who needs to be comforted by the visual of a white knight action hero while critiquing the First World assumptions that will, undoubtedly, litter the cinematic landscape of the action hero.  My contradictions make me uncomfortable yet I wonder if it’s better to ignore or embrace them.

Because it’s a love song that makes me happy:

Steve Forbert Romeo’s Tune

A Jennifer Hudson Gap campaign triggers cognitive dissonance for me.  [Yahoo News]

“If you can’t afford to tip, don’t buy a drink.”

Makes sense to me and I’ve never bartended (in public) in my life.

The New Yorker’s Sasha Frere-Jones discusses bartending, tipping and rock shows in ‘The Point of Tipping’. Here’s the starting point:

My friend Amy Korb tends bar at the Bowery Ballroom. On Saturday, she was working at the smallest of the venue’s three bars—the one against the back wall on the main floor, facing the stage. She wore a black half-length sweater, for comfort and warmth; there was a draft from a nearby exit. Over the noise, she mimed her reaction to the evening’s bands (a shrug, no smile).

A muscular woman and her older date bought several mixed drinks. A twenty-something bought several Heinekens. Each left exactly one dollar bill as a tip. Several others came and went, taking their drinks and leaving nothing. Korb sat on top of a freezer with her legs folded, ate part of a Clif Bar, and frowned.

“If you can’t afford to tip, don’t buy a drink,” she said to me, and to no one. She elaborated: “In a music venue, like-minded people get together. They like the same music, they like the same liquor. They also seem to have been socialized together, and they usually tip the same.”

The Heineken youngster came back for more drinks. And left without tipping.

“Whenever the night starts out with people asking for Long Island Iced Teas, you are in trouble. Vodka, gin, tequila, rum, Triple Sec, sour mix and Coca-Cola blended together in one drink? Fortunately, we don’t serve those at the Bowery. It’s house policy, and it helps weed the population.”

People still willfully drink Long Island Ice Teas? Ugh!

Why don’t people give a $5 or $10 tip at the beginning of the night so the bartender doesn’t end up spitting in their drinks for the rest of the night? (Disclaimer: I’m sure Ms. Korb doesn’t do that.) Please read the rest of the post for what live shows attract people who embrace tipping as a part of nightlife and not a rash.