From Prince(ss) to Pauper

CuppaJoe said:
Ever hear the expression, "the best preparation for failure is success"?

Not sure I agree with it, do you?
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Not really. When I think of someone who overcame a lot of failure, the name Abraham Lincoln comes to mind...........;)
 
dessert said:
something that I would call "perhaps truthful, but maybe a real good example of great fiction writing".
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Of course it is fiction but perhaps only to us. I suspect that she believes every word of it. Or as that well used quote from Rabbie Burns says so well:

"O wad the Power the giftie give us
To see ourselves as others see us!

It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
an foolish notion."

(To a Louse - paragraph 8)

Or perhaps more to the point is the question that has been asked since humans began speaking (or before?) -- the most well-known version is "What is truth?" by Pontius Pilate in John 18:38.
 
I read about her again today.

I read another article on her again this morning. I was at w**k and can't seem to find it now but it was a news article about her and it quoted her blog in the "news" article on how she was a victim.
It almost makes me wonder why she is in the limelight. I sense that she is a "promoter" of herself and is doing a good job at it.
I'm sure there are other victims out there who aren't seeking the spotlight of self promotion.
On the otherhand my 401K is down 35% too and I can sympathize with her but I don't think I would have done what she did as an investor.
 
dessert said:
I read another article on her again this morning. I was at w**k and can't seem to find it now but it was a news article about her and it quoted her blog in the "news" article on how she was a victim.
It almost makes me wonder why she is in the limelight. I sense that she is a "promoter" of herself and is doing a good job at it.
I'm sure there are other victims out there who aren't seeking the spotlight of self promotion.
On the otherhand my 401K is down 35% too and I can sympathize with her but I don't think I would have done what she did as an investor.
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Was it this article?

Life savings gone, 'Madoffed' best-selling writer back at work - CNN.com
 
I'm guessing that's it. Looks like the blog she wrote got quite a reaction:

Penney is not asking anyone to feel sorry for her, especially after the acid-response to her first-hand account of her financial woes in a blog called "The Bag Lady Papers" on TheDailyBeast.com. In the blog, she talks about selling the cottage and possibly more real estate and taking her first subway ride in 30 years. She's even considered selling some of her expensive jewelry to pay the bills.

Some readers blasted her as a privileged New York princess. They told her to get a job. Others said they didn't feel sorry for her. Penney says she was surprised by the "vitriol."
 
haha said:
This board loves to bash some poor dumb schmuck who has always been a poor dumb schmuck.

But I guess Penny or whatever her name is gets some points since she was once on top.

Not from me. Let her use skills gained in researching and writing "Making love to a man" to find and capture a sugar daddy.

Ha
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Well, writing about it and doing it are two different things. I find that watching plenty of porn doesn't make me a better lover.
 
FinanceDude said:
I understand her bitterness. However, in her search for sympathy and empathy she is going overboard. I read in her bio her mom is Greek royalty and her dad was a Harvard physician. She grew up in a tony WASP neighborhood in Connecticut.

This could be her FIRST real hard knock moment in her life. Pretty good for someone in her 50's.........:eek:

I have already lost track of how many times reality and life have dealt me serious blows, and I'm younger than her.......:eek:
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Never under-estimate how out of touch these suburban Connecticut WASP types can be. My last boss disappeared for 6-8 months from work and showed up one day to eat lunch and to complain about mega-corp's talent retention bonuses. Sorry, but mega-corp doesn't offer complimentary country club memberships.
 
She still has three very pricey pieces of real estate that if sold would bring her enough to have a decent life style . Maybe not the one she enjoys now but certainly more luxurious than a lot of our lifestyles .
 
BunsGettingFirm said:
Well, writing about it and doing it are two different things. I find that watching plenty of porn doesn't make me a better lover.
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Try watching some lesbians. Pretty good teachers, IMO.

Ha
 
To me, watching porn, straight or otherwise, is like watching someone emptying an RV tank. Not enjoyable at all, but that's probably me, who is admittedly different than most people.
 
barbarus said:
Is her real estate still sell-able now that the housing bubble has popped?

She may find, depending on location, that she's not doing so well in this endeavor either.
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If I remember correctly, she owns her places. So, she's still no baglady.

Come to think of it, she's no dummy, as her blogs would cause a resurgence of her book. And future books of hers may also bring in some income. She will recover and do all right.

Still, shouldn't we hold back our collective schadenfreude? I still feel being indirectly but significantly defrauded by those crooks in the mortgage processing and banking industries. I still feel like a chump for not shorting the hell out of them, when the news broke. Who am I to delight in calling Madoff victims stupid?
 
barbarus said:
Is her real estate still sell-able now that the housing bubble has popped?

She may find, depending on location, that she's not doing so well in this endeavor either.

Minyanville - Market Commentary, Investing Ideas, Global Finance, The Economy
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Even with the downturn I bet she had over five million in real estate not exactly bag lady . Those little beach cottages alone go for over 2 million and Manhattan apts . at least two million and then there is Palm beach . So she may have lost her billionaire status but her net worth is nothing to sneeze at .
 
NW-Bound said:
If I remember correctly, she owns her places. So, she's still no baglady.

Come to think of it, she's no dummy, as her blogs would cause a resurgence of her book. And future books of hers may also bring in some income. She will recover and do all right.

Still, shouldn't we hold back our collective schadenfreude? I still feel being indirectly but significantly defrauded by those crooks in the mortgage processing and banking industries. I still feel like a chump for not shorting the hell out of them, when the news broke. Who am I to delight in calling Madoff victims stupid?
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I was not indulging in schadenfreude; I was talking about porn and my old out-of-touch boss. BTW, the latter two are not related, thank the lord.
 
Interestingly enough they interviewed this lady on the CNN special last week where they talked about Madoff and how he did it. What was crazy was articles had been published years ago saying Bernie's scheme was a scam and a copy sent to the SEC and nothing was done.

I do feel sorry for this lady, however as one of the panellist said on the above show, it is important to diversify and to never put all your eggs in one basket as many of these investors did.

I hope she is not truly taking all those tranquilizers that she refers to, as I would hate to see her sacrifice her health to Bernie along with her money.
 
J'refuse to read anymore to read any more from a precocious crone who's true passion is taking picture of blowup dolls in a pool.
 
RonBoyd said:
I notice the Comments have gotten a little more balanced.
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And the anger simmers...

Bernard Madoff and the Full-Time Equivalent of Murder

I believe we’re at the beginning of something as powerful as the civil rights movement or the protests against the Vietnam War. ...

Few readers felt that conventional white collar imprisonment was appropriate for a crime this large. ...

We may soon have a financial “equivalency” for murder. People feel it isn’t right that a man can get 5 or 10 years in prison for robbing a 7-Eleven when a white collar crime can be more devastating to more people, but get a lighter sentence. ...

We’ll be a long time figuring out the equivalences, of course, but if employers can talk in terms of “full-time equivalents” for jobs, it isn’t far-fetched to imagine that modern white collar crime may soon be seen as a new form of mass murder. ... the compensation for the average [9-11] victim was $3.1 million. ... Yet even using this gigantic figure, the $50 billion fraud is the financial equivalent of destroying 16,100 lives.
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I read this Bag Lady blog and it strikes me as a lot of hype. Yes this woman lost money, but as was noted above, she has properties probably worth several million (although I don't think that $5 million is accurate, based on her description of these properties). And as a direct investor with Madoff, she likely will get something from the SIPC. Probably 100K but perhaps as much as 500K. So she is no bag lady and it is arguably offensive to use that term in the context of someone who still as a net worth of millions.

More generally, I find these Madoff victims to be self-important and afflicted with a sense of entitlement. At least one of them has sued the SEC, apparently on the belief either that a regulator stands as a guarantor of losses in the market, or that a regulator assumes liability for parties who violate regulations. Remember: the next time you get mugged, sue the police.

Another one appeared as a witness before the House Financial Services Committee and actually suggested a "restitution fund" be set up by the taxpayers just for the Madoff victims. Why the median household making less than 50K and incurring 401k losses of 30-40% should provide restitution for this particular group of millionaires who likely thought they were benefitting from Madoff's insider market knowledge is beyond me.

But my favorite is the Madoff loser who wrote to Judge Stanton overseeing the Madoff Securities bankruptcy. This guy invested in one of the feeder funds available only to sophisticated wealthy investors. As a feeder fund investor, he is ineligible for SIPC compensation. So he writes to the judge and acknowledges that, per statute and SIPC rules, he is not covered. But he says the judge should just order the SIPC to compensate him and other feeder fund investors because his loss was so devastating. Laws, rules and risk apparently are for the little people.
 
EagleEye said:
I read this Bag Lady blog and it strikes me as a lot of hype.
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I'm with you. Today I was in McDonalds and some old woman who was bent over do far that her head was about the height of the counter was trying to see through her thick glasses well enough to count out her money for a burger off the dollar menu. The clerks were patient enough, but not particularly helpful. This is need; this is trouble.

This Victim blogger is just another elitist piece of poop who deserves nothing except whatever she can suck out of gullible readers.

ha
 
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