No One Would Listen (Day of Reviews, Post 2)

Harry Markopolos, the man who warned the SEC that Bernard Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme almost a decade before Madoff turned himself in, has written a book about the process entitled No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller.

In No One Would Listen, Markopolos shares a truly unbelievable situation. This guy figured out that Madoff was stealing billions from investors, but despite his many efforts, he could not get the SEC to investigate the case. Even after reading the book, I still don’t understand how the SEC managed to ignore the case. Markopolos did all the work, and they still didn’t do anything.

Markopolos’s personality is not at all removed from his book. He is blunt, angry, and bitter. Boy is he bitter. Though his points are justified, I got tired of the “SEC sucks” talk, even though I completely agree that they do suck. Markopolos ends up coming off as a bit of a jackass. In the epilogue, though, he shares his 16-point plan for fixing the SEC, and seems a much more reasonable guy. Most of his points make sense, and I do hope the government implements them.

It was a struggle for me to get through No One Would Listen, and though I can’t quite pinpoint why, I think it may have been a combination of it being yet another book about economics and it being the first Daily Shill book I read after my vacation. But despite my challenges, I wouldn’t warn you away from reading it. I wouldn’t recommend it either, though. It gets a 3/5.

Watch Jon Stewart’s interview with Harry Markopolos

Buy the book