Is Bernard Madoff a sign of things to come? Will there be more like him? Is Madoff's $50 billion fraud a sign of things to come?

These are valid questions because Madoff was the product of a dysfunctional system, one that had the regulator doing nothing to protect investors because it was all too hard, and one that allowed him to get away with complicit auditors. And the other point too is that Madoff would never have been able to get away with it for so long if investors weren't clamoring to join his club. Greed and the desire for an easy buck are powerful drivers.

As Tim Reid in The Times notes, the wealthy were fighting to get on his books. "In the wealthy enclaves of Long Island and Palm Beach, people spent years trying to get on to Bernie Madoff's client list. Some even joined the blue-blooded golf clubs where he was a member - and where he recruited many of his investors - just for the chance of meeting him. Inside this world of predominately older, less flashy investors, there is not just shock and panic over the huge losses inflicted by Mr Madoff's colossal swindle. There is a profound sense of betrayal. To many he was not just a Philanthropic pillar of the community: many considered him a friend. Mr Madoff's modus operandi was based on his membership of exclusive clubs in New York and Florida, and on his image as an unimpeachable old-school banker ...If you gave your money to Bernie, he would see you right. Nothing flashy, sure, but he was safe and would always get you a steady return. Yet he often turned investors down."

Dick Cheney, bless him, has told the media that the Madoff scandal was simply an example of "bad apples". What crap!!! Madoff's crime highlighted the two big problems with the financial services sector that got us into this mess: the growth of under-regulated investment vehicles, and bullish investors who trusted those institutions and bought without thinking, or even knowing what those investments were worth.

Commentator Douglas A McIntyre warns that Madoff will be followed by many more like him. " None may be responsible for his colossal $50 billion disaster, but the circumstances of the times and the character of people like Madoff are in the DNA of the money system. They are the by-product of rapidly rising wealth, narcissism, vanity, and the naïve assumption that the very smart and very rich never make bad judgments ... The first reaction to the Madoff matter is that he was remarkably clever, so clever that what he did could not be replicated. To the extent of its size, that may be true. But, Madoff revealed how very deeply flawed the system has been and that means that he has many others just like him in the financial community."