Bernard Madoff investors should have invested in Kiva.org or Microplace.com

A little less greed would actually have benefited Bernard Maddoff's customers. They could have made the world a better place and kept their principal secure if they'd invested with Pierre Omidyar or Sequoia Captial, or the 40-or-so other microloan investors.

Small time investors like me can invest in microfinance efforts such as Kiva.org or Microplac.com.

Investing in People
E Magazine
Making a Difference, One Small Loan at a Time

By Rona Fried

© Elizabeth Prager
The world learned about microfinance in 2006 when Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank, won the Nobel Peace Prize. For several decades, the bank had been helping people in Bangladesh rise from poverty by giving them tiny loans, most under $200. Now the Bank has $520 million in outstanding loans to small businesses in poor countries.

Microfinance—offering loans, savings accounts and other basic financial services to the poor—has proved to be a critical lever in helping people to help themselves. A woman might borrow $50 to buy chickens so she can sell eggs at the local market. She can sell more eggs as her chickens multiply, and soon she can sell the chicks. She shares knowledge with her neighbors, creates jobs and raises the standard of living for the community.

Women receive the most loans because studies have shown they are more likely to reinvest their earnings in the businesses and in their families. They also tend to take fewer risks with their business and are more careful to repay loans. Whereas only 4% of the poorest people in Bangladesh pulled themselves above the poverty line without credit services, 48% did so with loans from Grameen Bank over an eight-year period...

Bernard Madoff tries to squirrel away some valuable assets

Bid to Revoke Madoff’s Bail Cites His Gifts
By ALEX BERENSON
January 5, 2009

Contending that Bernard L. Madoff sent at least a million dollars worth of jewelry as gifts to family members and friends last month, federal prosecutors asked a judge on Monday to revoke his bail and send him to jail.


Mr. Madoff, who has been free after posting bail of $10 million when he was charged last month with securities fraud, remained free after the hearing pending a ruling by the magistrate judge, Ronald L. Ellis of United States District Court in Manhattan...

United States Attorney Marc O. Litt asked for revocation of Mr. Madoff’s bail, arguing that the gifts violated conditions that barred him from disposing of any of his assets.

The newly aggressive stance by prosecutors appeared to represent a serious deterioration in relations between the government and Mr. Madoff, who is said to have confessed to a huge Ponzi scheme last month and had seemed to be cooperating with investigators trying to unravel the fraud. In an interview on Monday evening, a lawyer for Mr. Madoff backed away from earlier statements that Mr. Madoff was helping investigators.

While Mr. Madoff faced the potential loss of his freedom in New York, the Securities and Exchange Commission came under heavy criticism from lawmakers in Washington.

At a hearing Monday afternoon, members of a House committee questioned why the agency had not uncovered Mr. Madoff’s fraud long before early December, when he is said to have confessed it to F.B.I. agents. The S.E.C.’s inspector general, H. David Kotz, promised a full investigation.

At the court hearing in New York, Mr. Litt told Judge Ellis that Mr. Madoff and his wife, Ruth, had mailed packages of valuables in late December to his sons, his brother and friends. Since mid-December, Mr. Madoff has been under house arrest at his luxury apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, guarded by private security guards paid for by his wife.

By sending the packages, Mr. Madoff violated the terms of his bail agreement with the government, Mr. Litt said...

Let Big Oil pay for auto bailout

Ruben P. Hernandez of San Diego sent this suggestion to the San Diego Union Tribune:

Let Big Oil pay for auto bailout
January 5, 2009

In 1908, Henry Ford introduced the Model T, which got 25 miles to the gallon. Today, Ford makes an SUV that manages about 16 miles to the gallon. As a result, oil companies have made an outrageous amount of profits for 100 years. Instead of having the same chumps (taxpayers) bail them out, let the oil companies bail out the auto industry.