Bernie Madoff has died in prison who ran the biggest Ponzi scheme in history with victim losses estimated at $20 billion in original investments and $65 billion in recorded paper wealth. He was jailed for 150 years in 2009. Since then trustees have recovered almost 82pc of the total lost by those customers who filed claims.
He was born April 29th 1938 1.50pm in New York and according to traders who worked for him he was obsessive about detail around the office to an almost pathological degree – straightening pictures, computer cables etc. He was also ruthless, manipulative, controlling, bullying, paranoid and secretive. As well naturally, as a charmer who made his investors feel they were becoming part of an elite club.
He had a New Moon as well as Uranus and Venus in indulgent, acquisitive Taurus. His Jupiter was inconjunct Pluto, square Venus and Mars and a North Node in Scorpio – so not short of chutzpah, confidence and grandiosity. Jupiter Pluto tends to assume rules are not meant for them. Venus square Jupiter can be superficially sociable and insincere; and Mars square Jupiter can be adventurous with other people’s money and can be opportunistic. His Sun and Uranus were in an innovative and (clearly) slippery trine to Neptune; and his hard-edged Saturn in the financial/banking 8th was barely integrated into his chart with only a sextile to Mars, which is noteworthy. His Mercury in Aries was square his Pluto which may have given him a leaning towards obsessive thinking.
His Scorpio North Node is also interesting since it indicates a compulsive need to acquire, with redemption and transformation only coming after learning to let go and the loss of earthly possessions. When the pyramid collapsed in December 2008 his Solar Arc Neptune was exactly conjunct his North Node and tr Uranus was opposition his Neptune.
His wife Ruth Madoff, 18 May 1941 pled ignorance of his crimes despite having kept the firm’s books for decades and was stripped of her assets. She stood by him as one son committed suicide in the aftermath of his incarceration and the other died of lymphoma.
According to the those who knew them she was as consummately bullied by him as everyone else. She had a Taurus Sun conjunct Jupiter Uranus and widely Saturn – so no slouch when it came to materialistic impulses herself. Her Sun Jupiter were conjunct Bernie’s Venus which would give them a shared love of extravagance. Her Mars maybe Moon in Pisces fell in his 7th square his Mars Venus which would make for a disharmonious chemistry.
Madoff’s scheme was similar to that of Charles Ponzi a nineteenth century US financial scammer who gave his name to the same graft. Born March 3 1882, Lugo, Italy, he also had a raft of materialistic Taurus planets – Pluto Jupiter conjunct (= pushy, above the law), Jupiter Neptune conjunct (= financial illusions and deceptions), Neptune Saturn conjunct (= difficulty distinguishing between reality and fiction). He was a Sun Venus in Pisces opposition Uranus – so charming and wayward. His Uranus was also trine Saturn, Neptune, Jupiter –good at dreaming up new schemes, inventive and adventurous.
What is intriguing is that both have strong 9th Harmonic charts, which is the one that brings pleasure and can be idealistic and humanitarian – though its negative traits are less appealing. Vendla’s numerology thought is that 9 requires a ‘philanthropic or artistic attitude to life. If lacking, the number will “fail” to work constructively and could bring forward aspects such as frivolousness, immorality and irresponsibility.’ Greed does appear to be one of its lower register attributes.
Have a Scorpio north node and in text book fashion have worked all my life to acquire a home. I don’t get the ‘redemption through relinquishing all earthly possessions’ thing that is required of this nodal position.
@ Jac Stewart, seems like you are living your Taurus South Node. As a fellow Taurus SN/Scorpio NN, I get it. The question you should be asking about it is does this make spiritually fulfilled? Does the work you put in to maintain certain standard of living make you fulfilled or do you think you could use at least some of the time and energy put in there otherwise?
Bernie Madoff famously conned Jewish charities and individual Holocaust survivors, including Elie Wiesel, who’d invested 15 million. When hearing about this, Wiesel commented “he’d seen worse”.
This resonates with me. My Scorpio NN
is conjunctt Venus/Uranus in 2nd house, and these are conjunct Wiesel’s Mercury (he also had same degree Libra Sun). I obviously know I’ve never come even close to the kind of relinquishing of all earthy possessions Holocaust survivors did – they were literally used to work as long as their famished bodies would let them. But I went completely broke during my first Saturn Return, with Jupiter hitting my NN/Venus/Uranus after losing a horrible, commission based sales job I’d hanged into for months because I couldn’t find anything better. I survived on my then boyfriend’s, now husband’s cooking and charity food aid. Eventually, after a couple of months, got gigs working a physically demanding seasonal job requiring me to be up at 5 am and paying 10 € an hour. That said, this was one of the most satisfying jobs I’ve ever had, I got “promoted” after two weeks and I was legitimately proud when I was asked to stay with a minimum maintainance staffing off season. At this point, I had found an office job elsewhere. But I still think this is something I had to do for self respect. Getting over the trauma of this is another story, I really worked on that for the coming Jupiter cycle..
For what it’s worth, my mother has a Scorpio north node.
She worked a series of retail jobs while we were growing up eventually going into the funeral business and doing that for 25 years! Real Scorpio territory.
As a student in astrology what transits point to illness or death?
All that Aries-Taurus, even Gemini-Cancer – it’s me, me, me energy. And with Saturn in 8th, no interest in considering other people.
Once again though, there were issues with the regulators. Or rather their lack of regulation.