Even after he is locked up for the rest of what's left of his life, Bernard Madoff continues to rub salt in the wounds. According to a jailhouse interview, published in The Wall Street Journal, Madoff gets stuck into the SEC investigators and says he was amazed he wasn't caught. More alarmingly, he describes Securities and Exchange Commission chief Mary Schapiro as a "dear friend" and says she "probably thinks I wish I never knew this guy".

Madoff doesn't explain how he got to know Schapiro and how good friend she exactly is, so maybe he is just making trouble. But it's enough to make you wonder.>br />
In the interview, Madoff says that 2003 was the first time he could have been caught. He says: "I wish they caught me six years ago, eight years ago." No doubt his victims feel the same way.

He also raises serious questions about the SEC's ability to conduct an investigation, calling one investigator an "idiot" and that tyey dismissed the idea of a Ponzi scheme as "inconceivable".

Whether the SEC is any better equipped now to deal with corporate shysters remains to be seen.