Funny Money Punny

No!  That Is Not A Typo For 'Moneypenny'

Which tangential mention allows me to introduce a bit of clickbait, as we all know she was the pining secretary to 'M', that irascible head of MI6 to whom James Bond reported.  Art!

     ANYWAY today we are going to be focussing on a couple of despicable villains, who come without secret volcano lairs, unfortunately.  Ken Adams is long dead, or they might have done well to hire him.

     So, Your Humble Scribe has just picked up on a news item about Bernie Madoff, whom you may dimly recall, as his time in the headlines was a good sixteen years ago.  Art!

Looking a bit humbled

     This is where the numbers come into play.  Bernie, you see, made off SORRY COULDN'T RESIST DID SAY PUNNY with enormous amounts of money from his investors, in an elaborate Ponzi scheme.

     "What is a P -"

     PATIENCE!  I shall explain.  A PS is a financial fraud where a company appears to pay out big returns to investors thanks to being an absolute dynamo in the marketplace.  In reality, that cold hard unforgiving mistress, the original investors are being paid with money deposited by all the later investors, who came along thanks to the very high returns.  Caveat emptor! which is Latin <hack spit> for "The Securities and Exchanges Commission Smelt A Fish But Couldn't Find It".  They had investigated Bernie's company EIGHT times, thanks to it's ridiculously high rate of returns, yet either they weren't looking very hard, or he was a skilled criminal, because nothing came of these audits.  Art!

     What did Bernie in (not -off) was what we now call a 'Black Swan Event', an unpredictable and unique crisis which in this case was the financial meltdown of 2008.  Nervous investors tried to remove their $7 billion from his business, only to discover that he couldn't pay them.  All 41,000 of them.  Gee, that's an awful lot of people!

     Ol' Burney - picture piles of cash being set on fire - got handed a 150-year prison sentence in 2009, which he was never going to see the end of as he was 70 years old at the time.  Sure enough, in 2021 he jitterbugged his way off this mortal coil, having served 12 years in clink.  

     Now, you may fault the SEC for not catching Bernie whilst he was committing fraud, yet their response afterwards has been epic in scope and duration.  The last victims have now been finally compensated to the value of $131 million this month, concluding the sixteen-year process that has returned $4.3 billion.  Art!

     That's Richard Breeden, ex-head of the SEC and now head of the MVF - 'Madoff Victims Fund' not 'Most Valuable Fraudster', which has returned 94% of the misappropriated money.

     This is an excellent achievement, no question, BUT of course - obviously! - wouldn't it have been better to catch Bernie before 2008?  

     Let's bring on the second scoundrel of this Intro.  Art!

     To those of you asking "What did he <ahem> do?" the answer is pretttttty darned obvious - 'Crypto' which in BOOJUM! parlance equates to 'Scamble', because so so many of these get-rich-quick schemes are just that.  This is the New Financial Criminal at work, who sneers at Bernie's old-school fraud.

     Matey here managed two cryptocurrencies that collapsed in 2022, wiping out $40 billion of investor money <Surprised Pikachu Face> who would have suspected that! and triggering a run on the crypto market that saw it lose $400 billion.  At this point Ol' Bern would be petitioning for a pardon, because what he did pales into utter insignificance.  Which is not something you can often say about a $4 billion fraud.  Art!

     

     Do then did, meaning he left South Korea and travelled to Montenegro.  Why Montenegro?  Because it doesn't have an extradition treaty with either the Sorks or South Canadians.  Eighteen months later, as Montenegro's courts decided he could be extradited to South Canada, he tried to sneak off on a plane to Dubai.  And was caught.  HA!

     Conrad strongly suspects he will end up in South Canada and will have to <ahem> do time.  I wonder if Thailand will try to extradite him? because then he'd be Thai Kwon Do.

     No, Dougal.  If it looks to good to be true, it's actually a big fat lie.  Save your pennies.

"Bury Your Gays" By Chuck Tingle

Finished reading this loaner from Darling Daughter today, and I have to say it does have a lot of gay in it.  Which you might expect just a teeensy bit from the title alone.  Art!

     Part of the fun is deciphering which real television series or film Chuck is talking about, because he doesn't have the clout or backing to out-and-out name them.  "Predatory Hunt" is definitely "Predator".  "Dark Encounters" is definitely "The X Files" done lesbian style.  The titular "Black Lamb" undergoes a horrifying transmogrification straight out of "The Thing".

     His Big Bad, however, is kind of rushed through.  I feel he could have done a whole chapter on the aftereffects of <REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED> although that might have driven him into Michael Crichton territory.

     Also, Conrad is unsure whether to be impressed or worried that I knew all the musical mentions Ol' Chuck made.  He's got to be decades younger than I.  Or perhaps I just have awesome musical taste?

"The War Illustrated Edition 200 16th February 1945"

Ah, thanks to the monsoon rains dying down today - I was able to walk Edna in bright sunshine whilst temperatures were barely above freezing today - the usual artillery barrage of fireworks is sounding off across Oldham.

     Nothing to do with the item, I just thought I'd inform you.  Art?

     Ah yes, the fag-end of the Battle of the Bulge.  The South Canadians don't like to be reminded that Field-Marshal Montgomery saved the day by taking over on the northern flank of the Teuton counter-offensive and walked on water whilst also raising the dead -

     In fact he helped to defeat the Teutons but made this all about him, because Monty had an incredible gift of right royally ticking people off.  What you see above are British troops - absent winter camouflage clothing - marching to the front lines, no location given.  Art!

"IT WAS NOT MY OFFENSIVE!"

Just Thought I'd Throw This Out There

I did warn you.  Art!

     Featuring the gassiest alien imaginable.  Sincerely, if you've not seen this student film-project beefed up with $100,000, go out there and buy it.  At the very least you might learn about phenomenology.  And star-surfing.

Monument Valley

This, lest ye be unaware, is a location in South Canada, where erosion has sculpted the landscape in spectacular fashion, much to the delight of film directors, who don't have to pay for an elaborate backdrop.  A favourite location of John Huston.  

I hope you all appreciate the awesome grandeur of this.  Art!

     Conrad felt this was appropriate.  Here you see the value of the Ruffian ruble versus the dollar, over a one-week period, and I couldn't help but make comparisons.  Your mileage may vary but, once again, whose blog is it?

Finally -

Better go sort out those sprouts.  They're not going to boil themselves.