The author, who urges the investor to carefully do research whenever he or she is spending, investing or trying to help the poor, isn’t an optimist about Madoffs. He sees them in many places and wonders about the ability of the average person to steer clear.
He cites Louis Harvey of Dalbar Associates, who writes, “Attempts to correct irrational investors’ behavior through education have proved to be futile. The belief that investors will make prudent decisions after education [has] been totally discredited.”
One ends this book with the author’s commonsense warnings, which can possibly help one’s effort to avoid mistakes by learning from history.
History is not “bunk.” It is often a litany of mistakes, train wrecks and outrageous promises (just pay attention to any political campaign). Yet understanding how they happened through careful reading can sometimes prevent us from falling down the same hole as previous generations. And the author has skillfully used history in this book to help improve the odds that readers are not the next victims of another Madoff.
(Disclosure: In earning my geld to survive here in taxing New York, the capital of the institutional political con class, I worked for some 15 years for Traders Magazine. My boss there once interviewed Bernie Madoff. I once spoke to one of Madoff’s sons, Mark, for a story I was doing on market making. No, I didn’t think at the time that he was trying to pick pockets and still am not sure to this day that he was. Mark Madoff, who insisted that his father hand himself over to the federal authorities once he owned up to his wholesale con, committed suicide.)
The Madoffs Among Us: Combat the Scammers, Con Artists, and Thieves Who Are Plotting to Steal Your Money; By William M. Francavilla, CFP, (Career Press, Newburyport, Mass., $15.99, 224 pages).