<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><br><div><div>On Mar 18, 2009, at 1:46 PM, <a href="mailto:brunians@brunians.org">brunians@brunians.org</a> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><blockquote type="cite"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">Bernie Madoff always struck me as a rather smart man.<br></blockquote><br>Use of past tense noted.<br><br>He wasn't smart enough not to get involved in a Ponzi scheme.</span></blockquote></div><br><div>The decades of the Good Life might be worth the last few years on the inside. It's at least plausible that it's a rational trade. Was he dumb? That's for him to say.</div><div><br></div><div>Or, hey, take the "late" Ken Lay. I mean, even if he actually *is* dead: a bunch of years being really really rich. And then, at worst, an early exit. How tragic. At best, he's drinking margaritas on a beach someplace tropical, laughing at all the rest of us.</div><div><br></div><div>Adam</div></body></html>