The Madoff Sentence: Swindle the Rich? Get 150 Years. Swindle the Poor? Who Cares?

By Ginna Green, Shakesville. Posted June 29, 2009.

Let me be perfectly clear: I have no sympathy for Bernie Madoff, not a single, solitary, infinitesimal iota.
But surely I am not the only person who reads that he's been sentenced to 150 years in prison and sees the sort of ridiculously excessive sentence that's typically reserved for scapegoats.
Ah, the evil Madoff has been given 150 years -- finally someone is being held responsible for the horrendous economic clusterfucktastrophe which has befallen us all! Now we can go back to not paying attention! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!
It's just a little fucked up that the asshole who swindled rich people gets 150 years, but most of the assholes who swindled poor people haven't even lost their jobs. And that's to say nothing of the assholes staffed by the regulatory bodies whose enormous incompetence enabled Madoff's crimes, no less members of the administration under whose watch the economy collapsed.

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Melissa McEwan writes and edits the blog Shakespeare's Sister.

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