Dear FRONTLINE,

The operating policies of the feeeders to Madoff neeed to be investigated. I ran a Hedge Fund, and dealt directly with feeders in general and Tremont specifically. I believe that Tremont favored funds in which they had an ownership position. I also found that not one feeder who I compensated ever did due diligence on my fund. In effect, giving the feeder a high percentage of my management and incentive fee induced the feeder to "turn a blind eye" regarding due diligence.

Sarasota, Florida

Dear FRONTLINE,

Delia A. Smith wrote, in part: "I don't feel badly for these people who lost their money because they didn't do their homework. They let their better judgement be clouded by phony returns....I saw some of the financial statements...running the numbers myself..., even I could see that Madoff was full of it. It just seems to me that folks with money think they're entitled to more of it..."

Ms. Smith: Madoff investors are not looking for your sympathy, rather we'd prefer to have your understanding that there was a major failure of the SEC to recognize the greatest fraud perpetrated in history. The SEC giving Madoff a clean bill of health in 1992 after proclaiming that they feared a Ponzi scheme was tragically the seal of approval that drew in billions in dollars. Many of the best financial minds around the world supported Madoff. If he was good enough for them and the SEC, then Madoff was good enough for the average investor. The phony returns you talk about were nothing spectacular for the years that they took place in. Many investors saw the returns as more conservative than the returns of the market as a whole that in the 1990s ranged from 20 to 40%.

Your comment that Madoff investors felt "entitled" makes no sense at all. Why should you resent people, most who worked hard their entire lives, and saved, and chose to invest it with a person who had been the Chairman of the NASDAQ, advisor to the SEC, and respected innovator.

Yes, Ms. Smith, the Madoff investors lost much of their future being invested in Madoff. Please keep in mind, that your hindsight is 20-20. If this was so easy to spot it would not have gone on for forty years.

Madoff investors can only go forward. It is pathetic that SIPC has chosen to ignore its own laws in order to deprive investors of the protection they are entitled to. To date, Congress has also, with its silence, allowed the IRS to keep billions in tax dollars it received from Madoff investors on taxes paid on income that never existed.

RICHARD FRIEDMAN
JERICHO, NY

Dear FRONTLINE,

What? No picture of Madoff in his prison cell. What?, No arrest photo of Madoff either. These are our only consequences for fraud. This is the "worst" punishment that our society will dish out. Society has no shame anymore. Get away with fraud for as long as you can. Too bad if you get caught. The story of those soon to face a Judge for helping Madoff will keep the story alive for years. Time to retire Ponzi in favor of the new name for the crime, "Madoff scheme".

Evanston, IL

Dear FRONTLINE,

Thanks for the excellent, devastating Madoff show tonight; Frontline has been a national treasure for years. I'm a 65-yr-old English professor who's lived long enough to have seen plenty in this fallen world. But the Madoff circle on display tonight seemed to me the most swinish group of people I've ever seen on television who were not engaged in homicide, totalitarianism, or mass murder. The Clinton-Bush era will always be known from now on as the Age of Madoff, years in which greed became so cancerous that it not only made the Eighties version look like nothing, but almost destroyed the entire American economy. I'm an agnostic, but Madoff and his circle are such perfect, literally fat and piggish, satirical images of the moral rot caused by New York greed and materialism that they are almost enough to make one believe again in Jonathan Edwards' Old Testament God of wrath, avenging himself on the culprits by making them objects of infamy for decades to come, as well as symbols of the greed that fed them all their ill-gotten gains. Hunter Thompson was right to have dubbed our era, the era of the Baby Boomers, a "Generation of Swine."

Fred White
Baltimore, MD

Dear FRONTLINE,

I am not a direct victim - just a citizen who watching this show can only conclude that the SEC should be fundamentally restructured if not dismantled and recreated in new form - not just window dressing of new faces - in order to regain trust of investors - i can understand how individuals even sophisticated could suffer from incomplete picture of information - but to be investigated and get a clean bill of health from SEC is the worst part of the story, worse than Madoff himself, in my opinion.

New York, NY

Dear FRONTLINE,

I hate to sound like an unfeeling person, but I don't feel badly for these people who lost their money because they didn't do their homework. They let their better judgement be clouded by phony returns. I saw some of the financial statements in various media outlets and running the numbers myself with an Economics degree from a silly little state school, even I could see that Madoff was full of it. It just seems to me that folks with money think they're entitled to more of it and the self-made wealthy are too quick to distance themselves from whence they came. This guy preyed upon their social anxieties to get to the treasure chests-simple as that.

Delia A. Smith
Charleston, South Carolina

Dear FRONTLINE,

I think the overwhelming question will always be 'How did it happen?' and that will be asked for time in memorial. My only comment though, is a feeling of overwhelming sadness; for the investors who lost their money, for the lives lost, the futures destroyed and even, absurdly, Madoff himself.

Nafisah Mohammed
New York, NY

Dear FRONTLINE,

I can't understand how the SEC could not expose Madoff's fraud.How could this happen? What punishment has been administered to the SEC for their complete abducation of their responsibilities to protect investoers?

Ripley, TN

Dear FRONTLINE,

You forgot to ask Harvey Pitt any tough questions. He was presented as an expert witness, not as one at the scene of the crime.

marzi franklin
Philadelphia, PA

Dear FRONTLINE,

I am a huge fan of Frontline.

But I find that I am not capable of watching your special on Bernie Madoff to completion.

I started to watch the show but found it too disturbing to watch.

It is important to note that I was in no way personally impacted by this person or scam... my anger for this failure of our 'financial system'is papable...where is the rage for this?

How does this happen? Who 'enabled' this from our government? That is what I want uncovered and fixed.

Belmont, MA