You might think a supposed $50 billion fund with audited statements from an unknown accounting firm with no web site might, oh, raise some eyebrows.
And it did.
As the Wall Street Journal has reported, one individual more or less laid out the issue for the regulators in language that does not get much clearer, nor much further from the actual truth:
“Harry Markopolos, who years ago worked for a rival firm, researched Mr. Madoff’s stock-options strategy and was convinced the results likely weren’t real.
“Madoff Securities is the world’s largest Ponzi Scheme,” Mr. Markopolos, wrote in a letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 1999″.
Here is a guy who correctly identified a Ponzi Scheme almost ten years ago. Yet he had to wait that entire time for people to acknowledge that he was right.
Always remember that no matter how stupid you thinks something is, and no matter how certain you think collapse is, it can always continue on for far longer then you think. And that is assuming that you are right.