Comments on: What were they thinking! (or not)

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 11:16:50 +0000

No problem Bill, you’ve got to focus 100% on those big projects – often, of course, at the expense of lesser priorities.

Unfortunately, as you say, we will see more examples of that kind of thing as lessons get forgotten and complacency sets in.
Andrew´s last blog ..Kraft’s broken promise

By: Bill Welter

Bill Welter — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 12:07:08 +0000

Andrew,
First, let me apologize for taking so long to respond. I’ve been consumed with an assignment and everything else went by the wayside.
That said, your example regarding those who saw but could not validate the “Madoff miracle” is right on the money. Unfortunately, that will not be the last example we’ll see in the coming years.
Bill

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 23:34:47 +0000

Bill,

I suppose I would ask what on earth fund managers were thinking when they handed so much of their clients’ money over to Bernard Madoff when there were so many warning signs that things were not right?

[There were warning signs all over the place, like the fact that: (1) the firm which audited his accounts had something like only three staff (2) he cleared his own trades (apparently an unusual practice in the industry); (3) his fund somehow managed to produce miraculously returns of around ten per cent each year, regardless of whether or not the market had had a good year; (4) other firms who tried to replicate the strategy which he claimed to be using concluded that the market was too small to support those strategies by a fund of the size in which Madoff was managing; and (5) Madoff was so defensive when his strategy was challenged (those who dared ask questions were apparently frequently ejected from meetings)]
Andrew´s last blog ..Blackmail is criminal, not capitalist