madoff

Bernie Madoff's pants protect your iPad for $500

Part of Bernie Madoff's punishment for perpetrating an epic investment scandal was the auction of many of his personal belongings. That included some tacky shoes, used underwear, and pants.

Sixteen pairs of those pants ended up in the hands of Frederick James, a site that sells recycled and eco-friendly iPad covers. Now you can swaddle your iPad in cloth that once swaddled Bernie Madoff's butt.

As you might expect from a businessman's clothing collection, most of the iPad sleeves are in shades of brown and khaki. The crooked Madoff also had a more colorful side to his wardrobe. There are some cases available in orange, green, and blue.

The sleeves cost between $250 and $500 each. Think of them as a new kind of Madoff investment, where he still manages to separate people from their money, even though he's in jail.… Read more

The 404 769: Where Jill has a microphone and you don't (podcast)

The 404 Podcast has a symbiotic relationship with "Aunt" Jill Schlesinger aka The Financial Decoder for CBS Moneywatch: she helps our listeners create a foundation for their financial future, and we answer her tech questions about her Twitter account and yesterday's Apple iPad 2 announcement.

And sometimes she brings us cookies...giant, half-pound cookies from Levain Bakery!

You'll have to hold your breath for the iPad 2 discussion, though, because first we want to tell you guys about Jill's new podcast on the radio, appropriately called Jill On Money!

Episode 1 is already posted on the Moneywatch.com Web site; it's an hour-and-a-half broadcast where Jill answers plenty of questions about paying off mortgages, rising gas prices, and tips on how to maintain a good credit score. Plus, a little Cheryl Dunn in the morning ain't hurting anyone.

If you have a financial question for Jill, make sure you give her a call at 855-411-JILL (855-411-5455) and she'll schedule time to ask it live on the show, or you can also send her an e-mail at askjill(at)moneywatch.com or tweet her.

With Jill getting more involved in the tech side of broadcasting, she asks us for advice on whether she should buy the new Apple iPad 2. The way we see it, her buying decision depends on what she'll ultimately do with the tablet.

Since she already has a MacBook, she can either dish out $350 on a refurbished iPad 1 or spend $150 more for the 16GB iPad 2. Tune in to hear our advice, and as usual, we don't all agree on one path to take.… Read more

Should Ruth Madoff have her MacBook taken away?

I was browsing through the latest issue of Vanity Fair, in which Mark Seal has a profile of Ruth Madoff titled "Ruth's World," and noticed that Madoff, wife of jailed Ponzi-schemer Bernie Madoff, is apparently an Apple user.

The article talks about how she had to give up many of her pricier belongings, including a fur coat (or probably several), when U.S. marshals took possession of her Park Avenue apartment on July 2.

Personally, I wasn't too concerned about the fur she wanted to keep, but sick tech blogger that I am, all I could … Read more

'News games' put public in charge of hot topics

Here's a conundrum: when the world is deep into hysteria over a potential pandemic like the swine flu, how does someone who wants to poke fun at the problem do so?

For Jude Gomilla and Immad Akhund, the answer was a single sleepless night about 10 days ago during which the two San Francisco entrepreneurs built what has become a massively popular Flash game called Swinefighters.

In Swinefighters, players--dressed as giant-syringe-wielding and mask-wearing doctors--are tasked with killing off rogue viruses in the form of sneering pigs. Each time you hit a pig with the syringe, it is wiped out, … Read more

Game to let you run your own Ponzi scheme

Online gaming network Cellufun plans to unveil a new mobile game on Monday called MadeOff, which allows players to create their own Ponzi scheme.

The game's name is a play on Bernie Madoff, the recently convicted mastermind behind the biggest known Ponzi scheme in history. Madoff had more than 4,800 clients who invested money in his investment firm, expecting high returns. Instead of investing that cash into real securities, Madoff allegedly pilfered billions of dollars from clients before he was arrested in 2008.

Gamers playing MadeOff will engage in the same basic activity. You can choose to be … Read more

eBay selling Madoff's Mets tickets ($2,900, anyone?)

It seems that Bernie Madoff, the Fonzi of the Ponzi, had little use for technology for much of his life. He may not have even bothered making any online trades, for example.

However, he (or rather the trustees of whatever there is left of his swindling) has resorted to eBay to sell a couple of rather fine tickets to the New York Mets' opening day game.

These tickets--conveniently situated near the Mets dugout--are not the actual tickets that might have been graced with Madoff's behind. His trustees exchanged his chosen tickets for these in a deal with the Mets. … Read more