Big Investors Get a Dose of Their Own

Bloomberg reports that "The Securities and Exchange Commission hadn’t examined Madoff’s books since he registered the unit with the agency in September 2006."

Meanwhile, some of the investors who were dumb enough to trust the goose have been identified. (We must always remember the American dogma that wealth is a virtue and that the wealthy must be more intelligent; else, how would they get welt

• Director Steven Spielberg
  

• Publishing and real estate tycoon Mortimer Zuckerman
  

• New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon

• GMAC (GM financing arm) Chairman J. Ezra Merkin

• Philadelphia Eagles owner Norman Braman

• French bank BNP Paribas

• Tokyo-based Nomura Holdings Inc.

• Spanish bank Santander, possibly $3 billion in losses
  

• Britain-based bank HSBC, possibly $1 billion in losses
  

• Zurich-based Neue Privat Bank

• Yeshiva University in New York was an investor
  

And hedge funds (which have historically taken only investments from the very rich):

• Fairfield Greenwich Group, possibly $7 billion in losses
  

• Tremont Capital Management of New York

• Maxam Capital Management LLC reports a loss of $280 million

• Sandra Manzke, Maxam's founder and chairman: "I'm wiped out."

Senator Charles Schumer was one of the larger Congressional beneficiaries of Madoff campaign contributions. So too was New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg.