Buffett, Tavakoli Flag Ponzi Scheme Bigger Than Madoff's (Excerpt)
Bloomberg News - March 5, 2009
by Yalman Onaran

Bernard Madoff could face 20 years in jail if convicted of what prosecutors are calling the biggest Ponzi scheme in history. But his $50 billion ploy pales next to the one created by Wall Street during the past decade: the securitization machine.

In “Dear Mr. Buffett: What an Investor Learns 1,269 Miles From Wall Street,” Janet Tavakoli explains that securitization process, and how regulators, politicians and the government ignored all kinds of warnings from people who saw it for what it was.


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Janet Tavakoli is the president of Tavakoli Structured Finance, a Chicago-based firm that provides consulting to financial institutions and institutional investors. Ms. Tavakoli has more than 20 years of experience in senior investment banking positions, trading, structuring and marketing structured financial products. She is a former adjunct professor of derivatives at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business. She is the author of: Credit Derivatives & Synthetic Structures (John Wiley & Sons, 1998, 2001), Structured Finance & Collateralized Debt Obligations (John Wiley & Sons, 2008), and
Dear Mr. Buffett: What An Investor Learns 1,269 Miles From Wall Street (John Wiley & Sons January 2009)

Clients of Tavakoli Structured Finance have the benefit of proprietary consultation, which is not available in any other paid or public forum. Clients also commission proprietary research and analysis.

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