According to some “Forbes on Fox” guests, the Obama Administration is more harmful to the economy than Bernie Madoff’s infamous Ponzi scheme.
On March 12, Madoff [1]pled guilty to 11 felony counts including money laundering, perjury, and mail, wire, and securities fraud. On Mar. 14, Fox host David Asman asked guests of the show “Who’s worse for the market – Bernie Madoff or the folks in D.C.?”
Steve Forbes, Forbes magazine’s editor-in-chief, blamed the folks in D.C. as the worse culprit. Forbes explained that “in terms of what the current administration is doing, in terms of the cost they’re applying to the economy, uh destroying, hitting businesses, small businesses with new taxes, taxing capital, wasting tens and hundreds of billions of dollars, that’s gonna do more economic harm than Bernie Madoff could ever dream of doing.”
Guest Mike Ozanian, accused Obama of running a $2 trillion Ponzi scheme through his economic spending strategy. Ozanian, national editor of Forbes, explained, “Madoff’s scam is about $20 billion. Barack Obama’s Ponzi scheme is $2 trillion. And if you look at how they work the schemes, they’re very similar. Both falsify their returns, Obama has overinflated what the GDP is gonna be, the economy, how much it’s gonna grow. Even the Congressional Budget Office has said Obama’s numbers are way inflated. And to pay for that, he’s gotta bring in a lot of other scamsters through, Obama does, which in this case really are taxpayers.”
As an example of government swindle, Asman cited the annual $50 billion of fraud and waste in Medicare – the same dollar amount Madoff scammed from investors. “One government program wastes as much as Bernie Madoff,” he pointed out.
But Forbes market report Evelyn Rusli and national editor Quentin Hardy disagreed with those claims. Hardy called the comparison between government actions and Madoff “silly and wrong and more cynicism than anything I can imagine.”
Asman asked Hardy to answer in the context of whether the government or Madoff “does more damage to the market.” Hardy fumbled for words and changed the subject, commenting “ya know, uh, the great thing Obama’s doing is talking about personal responsibility.” Hardy’s claim made Ozanian bowl over in a fit of laughter, and Forbes chuckle and made a face. “Go ahead and laugh. Let me finish,” Hardy replied, and then made his point that government is merely cleaning up a mess caused by individuals ripping off the market.
Ozanian said he laughed because “Obama’s Ponzi scheme is doing the same thing that Madoff’s did. He’s taking money from people not even in the system, taxpayers not even in the system, and he’s going to scourge them for money down the road.”