Bernie Madoff Misplaces Billions

The breadth of 50-year wall street veteran Bernard Madoff's purported fraud astounds me. The bust is particularly shocking because of the timing, just days after the astounding arrest of Illinois Gov Blago and the revelation of his astonishing crimes.

I naively didn't believe that white-collar crime is committed on such a grand scale. But two schemin' hot shots got nabbed in the same week.

The Wall Street Journal quotes an FBI agent describing the fraud:

"[Madoff] deceived investors by operating a securities business in which he traded and lost investor money, and then paid certain investors purported returns on investment with the principal received from other, different investors, which resulted in losses of approximately billions of dollars."

Isn't "billions of dollars" an approximate amount in itself? When you modify the phrase "billions of dollars" with "approximately," what are you really saying? Is it just easy for Americans to think in terms of billions after the Wall Street bailout and the Detroit fiasco?

The automakers' request for $35 billion hardly phased me after the phrase "$700 billion" bounced around the media for months. A compromise of $14 billion sounds downright stingy in that context.