How to run an investment fraud the Madoff way

The NY Times posted an article this week entitled "How to Run a Financial Fraud" that outlined six steps to run an investment fraud (ala Bernie Madoff) and walk away relatively scott free -- considering you may have stolen billions of dollars. Of course the article doesn't condone the activities or even say that people should expect to get away with things, but it offers some interesting observations on how Madoff consciously did certain things to limit the collateral damage of the fraud for himself and his family. A thumbnail outline of the points made follow below.

1 - Avoid the six year lookback period for fraud
2 - Make substantial transfers to your friends and family
3 - Title your assets in the name of your spouse (preferably in Florida)
4 - Confess when before you get caught so you can control things
5 - Get arrested by the Feds, not the state.

You can read the whole store here at NY Times.

Image: Tracy O @ Flickr

At Least One Place Is Hiring

While I am not a huge fan of big government, it's nice to know at least one place has jobs for people who are looking. The pool of employers looking for recruits and work for those who hang on to their jobs is dwindling, but Uncle Sam has been on a hiring binge. Reports peg the number of open positions in the FBI alone at 3,000. That's a huge number by any count, but there are currently approximately 30,000 employees in the agency right now, so this represents approximately a 10% increase over its current level. The positions on FBIJobs.gov range from linguists, special agents and mechanics.

Are There Any Safe Investments Left In This Economy?

Maybe this is a sign of the new normal, but I have been searching in vain to find some safe investments to park money that earn a respectable amount of interest. Now I realize that with return comes risk and that nothing in this world is guaranteed, but aside from parking money in a CD that is yielding in the 2-3% range or a money market fund with an equally dismal rate of return, there are not a lot of options. I think the best places to park short term cash right now are FDIC insured online banking institutions. They offer much better rates of return than traditional brick and mortar outfits and more liquidity than treasuries or CD's. A quick Google search can return the usual suspects. As of the posting of this article the banks below were offering rates higher than the national average for 1 year CD's of 2.28%.

E*Trade Bank: 3.01% (no minimum deposit)
ING Direct: 2.5% (no minimum deposit)
FNBO: 2.6% (no minimum deposit)
Capital One: 2.64% (no minimum deposit)
HSBC Direct: 2.45% (no minimum deposit)

If you see any FDIC insured banks beating these rates or offering sign up specials please drop me an email at goldenparachuteblog@gmail.com or leave a comment on this post.