[Boomer]

I have to think they can follow the money. They better.

Supposedly his sentence is to send a message. And he will not be going to one of those spa prisons or whatever like so many of them do. That is supposed to send a message, too.

But if that money is not traced and if more do not go to jail, the message sent, I am afraid, will be that the odds of getting by with it make it worth taking a chance for the slime population. And there are plenty of others who are wired like Madoff and quite capable of the same thing. Maybe not as big. But there just the same.

(If you read this in a book, you might say the plot was contrived. How could it happen? On such a scale? It is surreal. And his name is Madoff. That name would never get past an editor if this were a work of fiction submitted for publication. The editor would tell the writer that the name Madoff would be too obvious, actually allegorical.)

They have to get the rest of them. They are cockroaches in hiding. But they are there.

And the psychology of how and why people just turn their money over is complicated and fascinating and tragic and full of lack of confidence and also over-confidence. And they don't even ask questions. Just hear what they want to hear.

This whole thing is the stuff of which bestsellers are made. But here it is -- real.

Boomer