Confessions of the Ultimate Denial

From the transcript of the Bernard Madoff trial:

Madoff: "...When I began the Ponzi scheme I believed it would end shortly and I would be able to extricate myself and my clients from the scheme. However, this proved difficult, and ultimately impossible, and as the years went by I realized that my arrest and this day would inevitably come..."

Wow, what must it be like to know all of those years you were a fraudulent sonabitch and would end up in jail? For whatever reason, it humanizes him for me, even though what he did was despicable. I think a lot of financiers walk the line, and suddenly you dip over too far one day, and before you know it, you are operating a massive, fraudulent Ponzi scheme. More than a little scary.

In this video he is happily talking about how you can't get away with anything without the regulators' notice. I guess, in the end, he was right. They just came a little late.