by Toni Geyelin

So, Mr. Bernard Madoff is going to jail for 150 years. Seems like a fairer sentence than the twelve his lawyers asked for. But you know what? I don't think he should be there alone; I think he should have some company. Quite a lot of company in fact. Who should be there with him?

• For starters, all the fund managers who fed him funds and either didn't do their homework (usually known as due diligence) or didn't fess up to knowing that this was a Ponzi scheme. Collecting fees for work you do not do, or allowing clients to invest in a scheme you know is bogus, is as bad as perpetrating fraud in my book.

• Investors who gave him all their money to manage. How dumb is that, when one of the basic tenets of investing is utilizing the "benefits of diversification” (otherwise known as don't put all your eggs in one basket)?

This fundamental investment principle suggests that if you invest, it should be in a broad range of strategies, asset classes and/or investment instruments. That way, if one stock, asset class or strategy does not do well, you will be cushioned by the performance of your other investments. In fact, the same principle seems to have eluded a number of otherwise intelligent employees at both Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, who held the bulk of their own investments in company stock and suffered because of it. I am not sympathetic to them. If you are silly enough to make this mistake, then live with the consequences.

Continue reading at Women's Voices For Change