Nouriel Roubini Gives Good Rant

Hoocoodanode? Normally, he is calm and analytical, but when asked about Madoff, he really gives what for:

Here is my answer fleshed out in full:

Americans lived in a Made-off and Ponzi bubble economy for a decade or even longer. Madoff is the mirror of the American economy and of its overleveraged agents: a house of cards of leverage over leverage by households, financial firms and corporations that has now gone bust.

When you put zero down on your home and you thus have no equity in your home your leverage is literally infinite and you are playing a Ponzi game.

And the bank that lent you with zero down, a NINJA (no income, no jobs and assets) liar loan that was interest only for a while with negative amortization and an initial teaser rate was also playing a Ponzi game.

....

Go read the rest.

It's one answer to how the economy is different from the machinations of Bernie Madoff: it isn't.

It's thought provoking.