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Smoking Guns in the Rear View Mirror: Madoff and the SEC

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Experienced bloggers tell me to lead with the headline, as in newspaper stories.

So here it is: read this link. It’s the document sent to the SEC in 2005 accusing Bernie Madoff of running a gigantic Ponzi scheme.

More specifically, it’s the Wall Street Journal’s copy of the letter, separately identified as coming from Harry Markopolos, the Deep Throat of the Madoff scandal. But that’s not the point.

The point is this: take 2 minutes to click on the link and give it a quick look.

Come on, you can afford 2 minutes, this is history we’re talking about. It’s only a 17-page .pdf file, and you don’t have to read all of it.

There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?

Now—what did you think? OK, let me help you out.

It wasn’t all that hard to read, was it? Some jargon, but largely around technical terms whose connotation was clear in context. Markopolos outlined it pretty well, right? You got the sense that something was most definitely fishy, and that this guy sounded like he pretty much knew what he was talking about—right? When he says "Madoff Securities is the world’s largest Ponzi scheme," did you get the sense he was telling the SEC that Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme? Yeah, me too.

Now—if you were a staff member at the SEC and received this letter—what would you do?

My own gut-level instinct—based on nothing more than having worked 6 months for the feds 30 years ago, knowing a whole 2 SEC employees, and having lived on this planet for a few years—is that at least a couple hundred human beings at the SEC are more than capable of of understanding it at least as well as you or I. And I’m sure several got the chance.

Which begs the obvious question: why, oh why, did nothing happen?

There are several really obvious answers, which I won’t belabor. Just now. (Though venality and incompetence generally head the list of usual suspects).

Now, at the risk of losing the bloggers, let’s get past the headline. When something in retrospect is shockingly obvious, it should at least raise the possibility that it might not have been so obvious looking forward. Consider the law of gravity, for example. Or Obama’s election. Not to mention this smoking gun of a document.

What kinds of things get in the way of clear forward perception? High on the list, I think, are beliefs. Not the opacity of data; not a lack of IQ; not a conspiracy of coincidence. Beliefs.

Beliefs: preconceptions, ideologies, inclinations, habits, norms, assumptions, conjectures, presumptions, presuppositions, expectations. A word for "stuff" in the mind that the neurobiologists haven’t yet "explained," but which laymen nonetheless manage to understand quite well.

Business doesn’t believe in beliefs these days. It believes in behavior, results, measurement—these it considers incontrovertible proof.

I have two suggestions. First, go see the movie “Doubt.” It raises questions about the effects of moral certitude.

Second, go back and read that Markopolos’ document again. It does exactly the same thing.

Why did the SEC look so pole-axed? Place your bets. Venality? Incompetence? Or blindness due to moral certitude? What’s your bet?

And by the way, who owns the movie rights?

Is it Personal? Or Is it Business?

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In The Godfather, Michael Corleone famously says to Sonny, “It’s not personal, it’s strictly business.”

What about trust? Is it possible to separate them? Can you be trustworthy in your personal life, but not in business? Does one imply the other? And what do we think of someone we trust personally who is turns out to be untrustworthy in business?

Cue Bernie Madoff again. (No, we’re not done with him yet; Madoff is a rich vein of material).

Eric Wiener in the LA Times:

the reason so many Wall Street players couldn’t believe their ears was they couldn’t accept that Bernie Madoff, of all people, would have pulled something like this. "Not Bernie!" was a typical refrain.

And, from the New York Times:

Indeed, in the world of Jewish New York, where Mr. Madoff, 70, was raised and found success, he is largely still considered as a macher: a big-hearted big shot for whom philanthropy and family always intertwined with — and were equally as important as — finance.

It seems increasingly clear that Madoff was greatly aided in this by dozens of willing accomplices—aka banks, funds of funds, hedge funds, “feeder” funds. People who took their own percentage for assuring “due diligence” so that the fraud that took place could never take place. People who claim to be anguished "customers," but who willingly sold the snake oil downstream.

And always, they too are characterized by those who knew them as people of integrity, people you could trust. And, I suspect, they believe it of themselves.

Now, there is a code by which you lie to one group and are trusted by another. It is the code you can hear recited in Huckleberry Finn by the Shepherdsons and the Grangerfords. The Hatfields and McCoys. The Montagues and the Jets, the Capulets and the Sharks. Or as it’s taught in competitive strategy and too many sales programs: the Sellers and the Customers.

I continue to be astonished that the largest Madoff “victim,” Fairfield Greenwich Group, who made hundreds of millions from Madoff, is considering suing PricewaterhouseCoopers—its own auditor. Reportedly because, channeling Willie Sutton, that’s where the money is.

How does Fairfield’s Walter Noel explain that to the partner at PwC’s Stamford office in charge of Fairfield’s audit?

Hint, Mr. Noel: you can buy The Godfather here and start rehearsing the line. "It’s not personal, it’s business. It’s not personal, it’s business." Click your heels three times while you say it. And tell him ‘trust me.’ That way it’ll sound personal, even when of course it’s not.

 

Anatomy of a Con Artist: How Madoff Played the Trust Equation

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The Trust Equation  describes the components of trustworthiness.  The equation is:

T = (Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy) / Self-orientation

Of course, any such recipe worth its salt will also serve as a template for reverse engineering—a “how-to” manual for a con man.  Measuring Bernie Madoff by the trust equation shows just what an effective job he did at mimicking genuine trust. 

So let’s do the numbers:

Credibility: Chairman of the Board of Nasdaq, for starters.  Not to mention a Who’s Who client roster.  But an especially nice touch: not just any old lamb could buy in—you had to be approved by the wolf.  Exclusivity adds cache and credibility. 9 out of 10.  Better than Alan Greenspan (hey, he used to be hot).

Reliability: Arguably Madoff’s greatest contribution to the con: don’t go for the jackpot, the Big Win.  Become known for steadily hitting .335 in a league of .285 hitters.  Always just over the average means always just under the radar.  Another 9 out of 10.

Intimacy: courtesy of spoonfeedin, he was described as a gentleman, gregarious, generous, personable, charming, and so forth.  Like a mass murderer, he appears to have been ‘the last person’ one would have suspected.  Give him an 8 out of 10.

Self-orientation: who would suspect the motives of a philanthropist, a giver to religious causes, a man generous with his own (we thought) money?  Not me, not you, that’s who.  An apparent low score (low self-orientation is good, you see); maybe a 2. 

That’s a Trust Quotient score of (9+9+8)/2, or a spectacular 13 out of a possible 15.  (If you don’t think that’s spectacular, try it yourself: take your own Trust Quotient.

There is no such thing as trust without risk; Madoff was an awfully talented con man.

But he couldn’t have done it without his pigeons. 

–A great many people may have suspected him, but felt glad to be in on the “fix.”  No sympathy for them. 

–I am astonished to hear that Fairfield Partners may sue PricewaterhouseCoopers—not Madoff’s accounting firm, but their own accountancy.  Zero sympathy for that Madoffian level of chutzpah. 

–Then there’s all the relatively innocent folks out there who thought they’d found something almost too good to be true.  They learned the distance between “almost” and “definitely” is dangerously thin.
 

Madoff Madness: When Smart People do Stupid Things

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Bernard Madoff’s Madoff Securities lost $50 Billion in an apparent Ponzi scheme.

You can read about the details anywhere—try the Wall Street Journal, for example. But the details don’t answer one question.

How? How could some of the world’s supposedly smartest investors—hedge funds–have been hoodwinked by something that, in the rear view mirror, was a blatant scam?

The answer reveals a common myth about trust in business. The myth is that good businesspeople make rational decisions about trust.

They often don’t. And in the rush for “best practices,” many “good businesspeople” shortchange commonsense for wishful thinking.

I have written about the Trust Equation: the trustworthiness of an individual can be expressed as a function of credibility, reliability, intimacy, and other-orientation. Someone who rates highly on these dimensions, as seen by others, is trustworthy.

But a con man is as good as the gullibility of those who want to believe him. Let’s examine the trust equation point by point.

1. Credibility: the man was the former Chairman of Nasdaq, and remains on their nominating committee. He is known as a leader in the industry. And his own website says he has "a personal interest in maintaining the unblemished record of value, fair-dealing, and high ethical standards that has always been the firm’s hallmark."

Never mind there were complaints to the SEC, questioning articles in Barron’s, unavailable data, and a one-man accounting firm of record. Don’t wanna go there, uh uh.

2. Reliability: the man had a multi-year track record of over-market returns. Regular. Dependable.

Never mind that he lacked the data, or explanations, to back up just why those returns were so steady.

3. Intimacy. Many people knew him personally; he was a regular at toney golf clubs in Palm Beach and Boca Raton.

In language we usually hear about mass murderers, acquaintance Jon Najarian said, “He always seemed to be a straight shooter. I was shocked by this news.”

And in classic Big Brother language, his lawyer stated—after Madoff’s apparent confession to operating a Ponzi scheme—stated “he’s a person of integrity.” And I’m the Pope.

Never mind that “intimacy” may be the easiest factor of the four in the trust equation to fake. It’s probably the favorite factor of con men.

4. Self-orientation. Clearly his customers thought he was generous, a regular attendee of the Red Cross Ball, a desirable acquaintance by virtue of his willingness to share advice.

Never mind his broker-dealer business model was under-powered to take advantage of his supposed insights, casting doubt on his motives. Conflicts of interest were present in the situation of a funds manager using a related broker-dealer.

Trust is a funny thing. Trustworthiness can be analyzed. But it often isn’t. Which means trust is as much about the one doing the trusting as the one being trusted.

In the days to come, the absence of regulatory action will be rightly noted. Where was the SEC?

But at the same time, let’s not forget the willingness of the sheep to be fleeced.

If it looks too good to be true, it is.

There’s no such thing as a free lunch.

An emperor without clothes is just a naked man.

We know that untrustworthy people are often greedy. We can protect against that to some extent.

It’s harder to legislate against greed and willful stupidity on the part of those doing the trusting.

When commonsense takes a back seat to greed, it’s a con-man’s market.