Free Bernie Madoff! (Jeff Tucker)

Jeff Tucker says there's no point in jailing the Ponzi schemer Madoff, who is obviously no threat to anyone, and whose crimes were far less serious than the fraud known as Social Security:

Bernie Madoff stole billions from the customers of his phony investment funds, running a racket rather than a financial service. People who aren't even his victims are furious, and nearly everyone enjoyed a 10-minute sense of vengeance when the judge threw him behind bars for 150 years.

Let me weigh in with a contrary view. Free Bernie Madoff, I say.

His life is already ruined. He is a pauper. He will never again do business. From the innovative genius whose information technology in the 1960s became the basis of NASDAQ, he rose to the heights and fell to the depths where he will stay this way until death. He won't be able to be seen in public for the rest of his life without encountering scorn and derision from everyone around him.

Maybe the idea of jail is punishment. I don't see how it can be a worse punishment than he would face on the outside.

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