"The Whole Government is a Ponzi Scheme" Madoff Says

“I realized from a very early stage that the market is a whole rigged job. There’s no chance that investors have in this market,” Bernard Madoff admitted from prison.

The infamous ponzi-schemer spouts off about a number of subjects in an extensive interview with Steve Fishman at NY Magazine. 

On regulatory reform:

“It’s unbelievable. Goldman… no one has any criminal convictions—the whole new regulatory reform is a joke. The whole government is a Ponzi scheme.”

On Wall Street complicity:

“Look,” Madoff said, “these banks and these funds had to know there were problems.”

“I wouldn’t give them any facts, like how much volume I was doing. I was not willing to have them come up and do the due diligence that they wanted. I absolutely refused to do it. I said, ‘You don’t like it, take your money out,’ which of course they never did.”

On his son's suicide:

“Let me tell you, I cried for well over two weeks. I cried and cried. I didn’t come out of my room. I didn’t speak to anybody, and so on. I have tears in my eyes when I’m talking to you, even. Not a day goes by that I don’t suffer. I may sound okay on the phone. Trust me, I’m not okay. And never will be.”

You can read the entire interview, and listen to audio from Madoff's prison phone calls at NYMag.com.

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