who can forget bernie madoff? many of us never invested in him or heard of him before his unbelievable ponzi scheme dominated headlines but for the victims, the devastation will last a lifetime. many lost everything they secured with him. and the trust in the institutions that were supposed to protect them. adam shapiro of the fox business network has more. >> 2009 was the year madoff became a household name. >> to ponzi scheme wiped out billions of dollars. victims worldwide are still trying to recover. >> everybody in my life has been demolished. it's not about the rich and famous. it's about the life work of many people. >> reporter: people who say the year of scheme, scam and fraud, not only stole money -- >> this was far more than the loss of money. but there was also a tremendous violation of trust. >> reporter: trust in the very institutions that were designed to protect american investors. >> can i trust wall street? >> absolutely not. >> can i trust sipc? >> absolutely not. they have proven themselves to

>> everything about bernie madoff was good to be true. the returns, the consistency of the returns and the fact that nobody seemed to be knowing how he was investing the money. so all in all it turned out that if it really is too good to be true you should stay away. >> why did you write about bernie madoff? was there a fascination? >> i wrote a story back in 2001 questioning his returns and asking how he managed to run this billion dollar hedge fund and no one had ever heard of before. the story ran and nothing happened. seven years went by and then last december 08 he was arrested so i was approached by pain when to write a book. >> when you were writing in 2001, why? >> hedge funds were on the rise. i wanted to write about somebody under the radar so to speak. i knew that hedge funds were going to be a big deal and as we see today they are everywhere. and they are here to stay. and they are probably going to be regulated by congress pretty soon. back then bernie madoff was unknown on the street, and he never lost money and i wanted to

. >> "too good to be true" is the name of the book by erin arvedlund, the rise and fall of bernie madoffms. erin arvedlund what is too good to be true? >> everything about mcduff was too good to be true, the returns, the consistency of the returns and the fact that nobody seemed to be, seem to know how he was investing the money. so, all and all, it turned out that if it really is too good to be true then he should just stay away. >> why did you, why did you write about bernie madoff? was there a fascination? do you know fibro the stories forebearance magazine back in 2001, questioning his returns and asking you know how he managed the million dollar hedge fund that no one had ever heard of before. the story ran, and nothing happened. seven years went by and last december of 08 he was arrested so i was approached by penguin to write a book. >> when you were writing in 2001, why? >> hedge funds ronde the rise. i wanted to write about someone who was really under the radar so to speak. i knew that hedge funds were going to be a big deal as we see today. they are everywhere and they are her

some of them were so incompetent that even when whistleblowers came and said that bernie madoff is running a ponzi scheme, even when someone told them what was going on they didn't have the guts or time or intelligence to investigate it. but being willfully blind ought not to be something to boast about anymore. going forward we want effective regulation. regulation is not a four-letter word. the lack of regulation caused this crash in many ways and cost $15 trillion to the american family. i'm not suggesting overregulation. i am saying when you have certain areas that are regulatory in this government to make sure the free market system works, and works well, and that when people commit fouls in the free market system in this area of competition there's somebody there with a whistle in a striped shirt to blow the whistle and say that's a foul. if you don't have that, the system doesn't work. the system gets completely haywired and that's what happened in the next decade. that's not a technical term, that haywire issue. we have the opportunity to get this right now. i say to the president,

a big fish was caught in new york, bernie madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison june 29th.adoff pleaded guilty to what is believed to be wall street's biggest ever investment fraud case of up to 65 billion dollars. the health care reform effort really picked up steam over the summer. on the night of friday, july 31st, house democrats pushed a reform bill through the key energy and commerce committee. >> you want to be-- you want to be led-- you want to be led out of here, you're welcomed to go. >> bret: meanwhile, all across the country, you remember this, emotions flared at town hall meetings often features democratic lawmakers trying to defend health care reform to outraged constituents. one lawmaker refused to hold any town hall meeting, citing what he called a lynch mob mentality. the house passed the health care reform bill and on christmas eve day the senate followed suit. that's our third top story for 2009. sure to carry over and be a topic of a lot of discussion this year as well. we're back with the panel. charles, health care reform appears to be on a track to th

bernie madoff.n, oh, man. changed the culture. he will go to his grave, he will never tell the truth about what happened. but is it a question of do we need more federal regulation? or are rich people too gullible to see the reality? it is a problem that will never resolve but taught us a lesson that we will be paying attention to in 2010. >> number two, the first latina on the u.s. supreme court. sonia sotomayor. >> the beginning of the year, after the inauguration, everyone kind of thought it was john paul steechbs. he didn't resign. justice souter resigned. justice sotomayor, first hispanic female sitting on the supreme court. enormous legal chapter last year. >> the number one most serious legal story, khalid sheikh mohammed. the trial will be held right by where the world trade center once stood. >> from a legal perspective, a great move by attorney general eric holder. this is where the case belongs. unlike iran and china where they do things in secret. we do not. and we will get in 2010 a con

and just bernie madoff is spending his life and i think many more lifetimes in prison. this is generally what happens to people who buried the iron laws of business success that all of that exist basically because what business depends upon is providing people with some service or product that they choose. that brings the two big lie number four. big lie number four says, small business is good, big business is bad. you alluded to that in the rasmussen poll. i have several bits of polling data that suggest that small business is among the most popular institutions and trusted institutions in america, and big business is among the least popular and trusted. this is truly peculiar. it is truly peculiar. why? because every single small business in the country, wants to get bigger a small business is generally a business that hasn't gotten big yet, or a business that hasn't been particularly successful. that's the nature of the. every big business in the country, almost without exception, started off as a small business. the traditional definition of a small business and bi

bernie madoff pleads guilty to a massive fraud that apparently stole 65 billion or so dollars from investorsmichael jackson, the king of pop dies in los angeles. army psychologist nidal hasan opens fire on military personnel in fort hood texas killing 14. and the coverage that january on january 20th when barack obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the united states. jim, you're chomping at the bit. >> i would connect two of those, obama and fort hood. i think that the obama administration's response or lack of response to the fort hood shooting and all the discoveries we've made about muslim jihadist infiltration into the united states is going to prove to be the biggest story of 2009 and frankly, obama's term in office. >> jon: judy. >> i think that the phenomenon of home grown radicalization will be certainly the national security story of 2009. i have to agree with you, jim. >> jon: all right. you're jumping a little bit ahead of us because we're going to get into that. ellis, your take on president obama and his year just completed. >> well, it reminds you that a really huge stor

we're expected to lose $30 billion from our investment in the autoindustry which bernard madoff says could have did better than that, that i could o better than that. >>> joe baca is no longer planning the administration to give tig woods for the medal. he said, instead, i'm recommends he run for congress. >> tiger woods' popularity has dropped from 85% to 33%. president obama's popularity is also at 33% but tiger had more fun getting there. >> you think the republicans can take back the house. >> we're going try to do it. >> the republican part will take both houses of congress. >> you know his prediction will come true because he got it from that creepy old gypsy woman. >> and we'll will right back. >>> >>> and that's our program this morning. thanks for joiping us. have a great week. so long.

to which bernie madoff said, i could do better than that. >> joe baca is no longer planning the nomination to give tiger woods a medal. he said, instead, i'm recommending he run for congress. >> tiger woods' popularity has dropped from 85% to 33%. president obama's popularity is also at 33% but tiger had more fun getting there. >> you think the republicans can take back the house. >> we're going to try our best to do it. >> the republican party will take both houses of congress. >> you know his prediction will come true because he got it from that creepy old gypsy woman. >> and we'll be right back. that creepy old gypsy woman. >> and we'll will right back. morning.that's our program this thanks for joining us. have a great week. so long.

that's bernie madoff accounting. the other issue that i really was disappointed in was the president's solution to the earmarking and pork barrelling was to put it all on a webpage. that's -- we all know what earmarking and pork barreling does. finally his proposal for next year, 2011, to eliminate $15 billion in spending and meanwhile is proposing another stimulus bill that ranges between 80 and $115 billion additionally on the debt. it doesn't work. >> larry: we'll have more with senator john mccain after this. sfx: coin drop want to hear how more families are saving money, saving time and saving for the future? it's regions lifegreen checking and savings. these accounts come with a personal savings review, up to a $250 annual savings account bonus, and free online and mobile banking for simple and safe banking anytime, anywhere. just drop by or visit regions.com/open to open your accounts, and get into the rhythm of saving. reons it's time to expect more. >> larry: we're back from the rotunda in capitol hill with

but think it arted off this decade with thgs like the enron, and you ended itof course, th bernie madoffand the collse of wall street. d so i think fundamentally what we arseeing politilly too is sort of the rise of the invidual, that institutions now e no longer as trusted, includi politicians. >> i was going to say,he begiing of the decade coincided with the most condition teed election of oulifetime. >> thas right. and so you started offhere, you kn, but what i thought was really interesng too was when you look atarty identification in 2 thousand d now compare it to where we are now, looking athe pew, poll, of course, the number of people who identify themselves as independen has jumped six points. it's not that the number o people who identify themlves as democrats has gone ueither. thisumber looks almost exactly the sames in 1992, where we had somof those same elements coming io play. frusation with the statusco, ere was scandal in washington there s obviously economic upheava and so think what we are seeing botin campaigns, and the way liticians talk about things, it fls very perot

is there are bernie madoff's in this world but he's spending the rest of his life and i think several of their lifetimes in prison and this is generally what happens to people who very the iran laws of business success. that exists basically because of a business depends upon is providing people with some service or product they choose. that brings me to the big lie number four. the big line number four says small business is good. big business is bad. you elated to that in the rossin poll. i have several bits of polling data that suggest small business is among the most popular institutions and trust institutions of america and big business is among the least popular and trusted. this is truly a peculiar. it is peculiar. why? every small business in the country wants to get big. a small business is generally a business that hasn't gotten big yet or a business that hasn't been particularly successful. that is the nature of it. every big business in the country almost without exception started off as a small business. the traditional definition of a small business and big business woul

madoff's issue going on and said, this guy is running a ponzi scheme, it's a scam. we had people show up to the s.e.c. and say investigate this, it's a massive scam, and the s.e.c. couldn't even investigate it when they had people coming and saying, here's what's happening. it's unbelievable. but during that entire period, we had regulators starting with the federal reserve board and mr. greenspan and others in regulatory capacity said -- boasted about not being willing to regulate. and the result is big financial firms in this country and a lot of others were engaged in just an unbelievable orgy of greed. and so let me just show a little of what was going on, and the fed should have been attentive to this. it was their responsibility, among others. we've all seen these ads. wake up and brush your teeth in the morning. if you've got a television set on, you hear the ads. this was the biggest mortgage company in america, countrywide. countrywide mortgage said -- this is their advertisement -- "do you have less than perfect credit? do you have late mortgage payments?

wait until the last five days of the campaign to say my opponent was a business partner of bernie madoffou might think about that if people are not going to have their ballots and the voting. the second thing i want you to think about is a identifying your voter groups. who are these people who are going to vote early? is it a state like california where you don't do anything about it? is a state where you have to register people every year? what kind of people might vote early? democrats are really good at going after senior citizens. i like the background noise. democrats go into a senior citizen home and you have a bunch of people who are not able to drive themselves. those might be good targets to have vote early. i saw a great program in california of young republicans and professional women. if moms are a great group of early voters you think about the average mother's day peepers little they get up and make lunch and feed everybody breakfast and load the kids into the minivan and have ten minutes to get one kid to day care and they go to work for eight hours and on the way home st

third, as evidenced by the inspector general's report on the madoff affair, and the testimony of chairman schapiro and sec staff before congress, the bulk of the federally covered in dust and advisors, i ayes, are examined in frequently. a clear oversight and gap has existed for some time and is now emerging into public view. nasaa members are fully prepared to fill this gap accepting responsibility for the oversight investment advisers with up to $100 million in assets under management. nasaa members possess unique qualifications that ensured that permanent closure of this gap will be made, or geographically near these folks. it's more economical and easier for us to go out and look at them, and this is the trend, the industry is moving toward investment advisers and moving away from the broker-dealer business model. because i a regulation is complex and substantively different from the regulation of broker-dealer, the expense of nasaa members is all the more critical in this area. forth, individual behavior is not reliably rational during just those times when systemic safety is in jeop

. -- bernie made of -- bernie madoff stole went to israel. the federal reserve is nothing but a ponzi scheme. we need to round them up and send them back to israel. they are all jewish, are they not? host: joe, republican line. caller: i hear a lot of these callers blaming the government for this problem. they are to blame and there is no doubt about it. individual people are just as much to blame. they did not budget. they thought that housing would always go up. they told their congressmen that they wanted no money down home loans. they do all of these things and they blame it on someone else. but the problem is that everyone is blaming everyone else nowadays. if i was a bank, i would look at the typical attitude conveyed by your callers and say -- heck with it. they would be blamed for being a racist or whenever. host: 5 more minutes on the role of federal regulations, preventing crisises. the house is back on tuesday, on january 12. the senate returns on the 20 at the january. new republicans reporting on line this morning, boarding a "wi

need 60 -- let me say this week, people who think 40 out of 100 is a w3majority are using the bernie madoffounting, it just doesn't fly the american people understand that out of 100, a majority is 51. so that is an option on the table. it is an option -- if you read your constitution on how many votes it takes, that is what the constitution says. >> when will the decision be made by leadership in both the house and senate on the way forward on health care? >> i think in the next few weeks certainly you will have a decision based on input from our caucus. and they are receiving input from constituents. and we will be brought the best way forward. host: next on colorado -- guest: let me just say, there is a lot of talk about the massachusetts election. the fact of the matter is the day after the election use all health care premiums going up just as fast as the day before the election. you saw people denied insurance because of pre-existing conditions the day after, just the day before. so, the need for health-care reform has not gone away and the american people, if you ask them about the c

they failed to get bernie madoff about five years before he actually got caught. they repeal the glass-steagall act. how many agencies doing need to regulate the banks and financial institutions which congress passes the laws to do? or like national security where we have nine or 10 agencies to should have protected us from the under-pants bomber and now they have failed. one last thing, the president himself said the democrats control both houses. they only the republicans, so they have blocked the amount. host: one speck of the speech getting a lot of discussion was when the president talked about the recent supreme court decision -- one aspect of the speech -- let's listen. it is the reaction from justice samuel only to. >> last week the supreme court reversed a century of law. i believe it will open the floodgates to special interests. including foreign corporations. the fed it without limit and our election. [applause] i and the american elections should be bankrolled by america's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. they should be decided

we had made off, -- bernard madoff, a regulated by the securities and exchange commission, stanford,regulated by the security and exchange commission, the big banks of new york. one of the things people don't hear very much is, the federal reserve had people sitting in every one of those banks during the period in which they were making the bad loans and they were not doing anything about them. so, the idea that regulation was going to get us out of this problem is wrong. what we need to do is go and put incentives on the bankers. that is what i want to do, make the bankers responsible for loans. make every banker get up in the morning of worry about what is on its balance sheet. how'd we do this? get rid of too big to fail. it don't bail them out. if they fail, they fail what this failure mean? it doesn't mean the bank disappears. it just means we wipeout the stockholders and we get rid of the management and we we adjust the ownership and control of those assets to somebody who hopefully will manage them better. that is what we need to do. until we do that -- and we did that up unti

olbermann did not touch it, rich man out, you know, what people would refer to as the liberal -- rachel madoffyou know, what people would refer to as the liberal press. we bypassed -- we were able to bypass the mainstream media opposing negligence in that area because we came together as a community. another thing is the freedom march that took place in the last couple of days in cairo where 1400 people from around the world went there, rachel maddow, who would cover the iranian protesters, but did not cover these protesters, and neither did most of the mainstream media, as far as i'm aware, but we on the internet can go google frida march and see people all over the world marching in support of the palestinians and the israelis. host: what does that mean to your world view? has it changed, become more in mind then? caller: -- become more enlightened and then? caller: absolutely, we realize that people are on the same page and we can move forward and work together in regard to certain political situations in the world. in-in regard to political participation is that we watched -- a-in regard t

we had made off, -- bernard madoff, a regulated by the securities and exchange commission, stanford,egulated by the security and exchange commission, the big banks of new york. one of the things people don't hear very much is, the federal reserve had people sitting in every one of those banks during the period in which they were making the bad loans and they were not doing anything about them. so, the idea that regulation was going to get us out of this problem is wrong. what we need to do is go and put incentives on the bankers. that is what i want to do, make the bankers responsible for loans. make every banker get up in the morning of worry about what is on its balance sheet. how'd we do this? get rid of too big to fail. it don't bail them out. if they fail, they fail what this failure mean? it doesn't mean the bank disappears. it just means we wipeout the stockholders and we get rid of the management and we we adjust the ownership and control of those assets to somebody who hopefully will manage them better. that is what we need to do. until we do that -- and we did that up until

and one of the things we saw with the madoff scandal, with the credit default swap scandal, with the a.i.g. overextending on selling those, goldman sachs selling their souls in with a.i.g., and then their former chairman getting them the massive bailout so they could have the biggest, most healthy profiting year in history this last year, all these kind of things going on, you need transparency and you need somebody standing up for the people. you need reform and the government should be about oversight, it should be about making sure there's a fair, level playing field and then the government doesn't play, they referee. we don't need them as players, we need them as referees and that is an obligation this body has foulen down on badly -- fallen down on badly in the preseason years and it's time we got back to it. those are things that need to be part of reform. the government should be about making sure people play fair, not being the bully player on the field that muscles everybody else off of it. those are the kind of things we need to be about. and we when you think of the -- and

. -- bernie made of -- bernie madoff stole went to israel. the federal reserve is nothing but a ponzi scheme. we need to round them up and send them back to israel. they are all jewish, are they not? host: joe, republican line. caller: i hear a lot of these callers blaming the government for this problem. they are to blame and there is no doubt about it. individual people are just as much to blame. they did not budget. they thought that housing would always go up. they told their congressmen that they wanted no money down home loans. they do all of these things and they blame it on someone else. but the problem is that everyone is blaming everyone else nowadays. if i was a bank, i would look at the typical attitude conveyed by your callers and say -- heck with it. they would be blamed for being a racist or whenever. host: 5 more minutes on the role of federal regulations, preventing crisises. the house is back on tuesday, on january 12. the senate returns on the 20 at the january. new republicans reporting on line this morning, boarding a "wi

in addition to predicting bernard madoff, who perpetrated the largest ponzi scheme, last year we arrested the ringleaders of what is described as the biggest hedge fund insider trading case in history and secured 30-year and 25 year sentences for two executives of natural century financial enterprises following their convictions on conspiracy, fraud, and money laundering. we also devoted substantial attention to prosecuting mortgage fraud. right now the fbi is investigating more than 2800 such cases, up over 400% from five years ago. the recently enacted federal budget for 2010 will enhance these efforts and will be enhanced the legislative authority the congress provide it last year in the fraud enforcement and it -- act of 2009. i'm confident with the new authorities, and bold new plan of action we can, and we will commit measurable, meaningful progress. in working together with our law enforcement and regulatory partners, we will succeed in restoring the integrity of markets, restoring tax. resources and protecting the vast majority of hard-working americans, investors, and businesses

madoff had it all? >> she deftly had a role. she kept the books when they started in the early 1960s on a folding card table in the apartment that she was still keeping the books the day he was arrested. and she didn't know drug, she certainly was along for the ride. i liken them to bonnie and clyde. anybody been firing guns, they were certain part of the scheme. >> do you see that this story will continue with more trials, etc.? >> there are more people, sort of the layers of the onion are being unpeeled. one of the significant questions i think though is the failure of the federal government here. sec investigators were after madoff again and again, from 92 on. they always missed him. why was that? their defense is they inexperienced and incompetent here but i don't know if that really satisfied an answer. >> when is the first time you heard of bernie madoff? >> the night he was arrested. i was sitting in new york next to my colleague. we had just finished reporting on rod blagojevich, the governor of illinois and his prevaile

madoff have a role? >> she kept the books in the early 1970's on a folding card table in the apartment. she was still keeping it in the books today he was arrested. if she didn't know directly she was along for the right. it's like bonnie and clyde. maybe a pawnee didn't five-year any guns but he was part of the scheme. >> do you see that this story will continue with more trials, etc.? grumet there are more people. the leaders of the onion are being appealed. one of the significant questions i think the was the failure of the federal government here. the sec investigators were after madoff again and again from 92 and on. they always mistake. why was that? the were defenses, inexperienced and incompetent but i don't know if that is a satisfying answer. stomach acid of the investigative unit for adc when is the first time you heard of bernie madoff? >> the night he was arrested i was sitting in new york next to my colleague. we just finished reporting on the governor from illinois, and my friend got an e-