With Bernie Madoff locked-up in the Manhattan Correctional Center better known to New Yorkers as ‘the Tombs” (a fitting place for him to enter prison life never to return) I thought I would share one of the odder thoughts (or mental hyperlinks) I have had.

Although the victims of this enormous fraud deserve our help and sympathy at its core what made Bernie’s scam so powerful was the seductive offer it extended to investors to let them into the inner circle a private club or sanctum sanctorum to which few are ever admitted. This reminds me in an odd way of the allure of the luxury goods market: “Madam we could not possibly sell you a fabled Birkin bag; the waiting list is years long.” Followed some weeks or months later by the helpful call of a sympathetic store manager who reports that one such extremely expensive handbag happens to have surfaced at a sister store which might be available if the shopper could act fast.

Now before I receive petabytes of hate mail let me say that the criminal acts of an evil man can and should in no way be equated with the perfectly legal marketing tactics of the high-end luxury market. However one of the most seductive elements of the Madoff crimes was the irony that at the same time that Bernie was brushing off would-be investors with a “it’s probably not for you” he was apparently paying outsize selling commissions to feeder funds to take in ever larger new flows of cash.

I suppose we should not be surprised at this warped parallel. Madoff would not have been so successful over a very long period had he not understood how to tap into one of the deeper insecurities of the human character. Namely the strong desire most of us harbor to be included to feel on the inside of a very good thing to get the present denied to others.

Perhaps Groucho had it right again: Don’t try too hard to be a member of any club that would have you.