The Madoff situation looks like it will be even more complicated than I thought. It turns out that people who never invested with Madoff could be forced to repay the money he stole from other investors. This comes about because the funds that invested with him in the past, but are no longer with him, will have to return profits, and that money will come from new investors in that fund who were not investors when the fund was invested with Madoff. Here is an article that explains this:

http://www.thebigmoney.com/articles/news/2008/12/16/madoff-madness?page=full

It will take a lot of accountants and many years to sort this out. Look for some lawyers to make their fortune on the lawsuits. As in the novel "Bleakhouse" referred to at the end of the above referenced piece, in the end the lawyers will have all of the money. My first question is what happened to the $50 billion? Is it in a Swiss bank account? My second question is who helped Madoff run his scam? There is no way he could have pulled off such a deception by himself. I can see that it would be desirable to limit the number of people involved since the fewer people involved, the less likelihood of exposure. But surely he had help.