In a country that can often be overly zealous in preventing what it perceives to be threats to its security, Americans still sometimes make serious mistakes by simply acting in good (but perhaps oblivious) faith.  We scrutinize every detail of our children’s daycare centers.  We search aggressively for trustworthy mechanics to work on our vehicles.  We read food labels and make decisions based on research we might have conducted.  We wear our seatbelts and have front, side, and curtain airbags.  We buy things like credit protection insurance.  We investigate potential employees, employers, and even our landscapers and maintenance workers.  With the level of security-mindedness of most Americans, one would think that it would be difficult to fool us.  However, despite all of our precautions, we are now facing what is perhaps the largest swindle ever committed in the world.  Apparently, when it came to Bernard Madoff, all of our natural and learned safety senses went out the window of a high-rise in Manhattan. 

Even before these frauds- both alleged and admitted- were revealed to the public, we were already facing serious economic difficulties, as evidenced by the sharp increase search engines experienced for terms such as “qualified bankruptcy attorney in Long Island” and “chapter 7 bankruptcy in Suffolk County.”  While most of the filings that probably resulted from those searches were personal, the Madoff fiasco is shaking the country in its financial core.  Especially in New York, there are a number of great and prestigious companies and organizations that are now considering those same lawful financial protection options afforded to every day consumers.   

So, is it really fair that the American public is being made to suffer even more?  This “ponzi scheme” is robbing countless aid and charity programs and organizations of critically needed funds.  As a result, many of them are closing down operations.  In addition, investors and other large financial firms are in danger.  All of this means that the American people are yet again bearing the brunt of these poor decisions.  The most tasteless aspect of this is that we simply must accept at least partial blame.  Dozens of reports are surfacing that Madoff’s operations were rarely investigated or scrutinized.  Very intelligent people trusted enormous amounts of money with Madoff while knowing full well that what he promised was virtually impossible by all accounts.  But sometimes, greed warps our better judgment, and we may choose to ignore that little voice that says: “If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.”

We can therefore add this to our New Year’s resolutions: to be as diligent and safe with our financial matters as we are with the safety of our family, our bodies, and our neighbors.  Because after all, the act of each of us making smart decisions about our money will help everybody- all over the world.  That is, as long as we recognize this as the wake-up call that it really is.    

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 19th, 2009 at 7:50 am and is filed under Financial Market, General Information, Long Island Bankruptcy, Repairing Credit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.