We would like to see some of this anger reserved for the agencies whose job it was to regulate Madoff.

Remember that Madoff did not operate a hedge fund, as was often reported, but acted as an Investment Advisor and operated a broker dealer in full view of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Remember also that the SEC was given a detailed analysis highlighting 29 red flags offering a compelling argument that Madoff’s operation was either a Ponzi scheme or engaged in illegal front running nearly a decade before it blew up.

It seems to us that the lack of action by the SEC goes beyond mere incompetence and enters into the realm of culpability. Go back and look at the work done by Harry Markopolos in revealing the Madoff scheme. It seems ridiculous to us that he was doing this work instead of the SEC, even more ridiculous that the SEC given a set of facts could not take it the rest of the way. That Markopolos had to compile this document proved incompetence, that the SEC did not use it to put an end to the scheme indicates something worse.

1:18 p.m. | An “annoyed” congressman: Mr. Kanjorski signals that he doesn’t want to hear that the S.E.C. can’t discuss the ongoing Madoff investigation. He notes that the lack of cooperation by the S.E.C. over the last several weeks is “unacceptable” and he threatens to shut down the agency if they don’t start cooperating. Mr Kanjorski says one of the officials asked to testify said he was exempt, prompting the congressman to call the head of the S.E.C. because he was so “annoyed.” He called the opening statements “oatmeal.”

I was looking at another list as well in my due diligence for Futures’ upcoming Top Traders of the year feature. You see, while 2008 was a terrible year for equities, hedge funds, housing and just about every other asset class, commodity trading advisors (CTAs) had one their best year’s ever. Those of you who are familiar with managed futures know that it tends to perform best when equity markets struggle and when there are large market dislocations causing increased volatility.

What I find most interesting is how so many institutions and individuals could send billions of dollars to feeder funds and directly to Mr. Madoff while a relatively simple exercise of due diligence would have produced huge red flags yet these same folks would turn up their nose at most CTAs; too risky you see.

The list of managers in the Barclay Hedge CTA database show dozens of managers earning more than 50% in 2008 and more than 300 managers with a compound annual return of better than 10% over the last three years—10% is the modest figure Mr. Madoff promised that brought so many billions of dollars to his firm.

However, many of the CTAs in the database who have produced consistent strong returns had only a few millions under management. It was an interesting dichotomy and one that is worth further exploration. Stay tuned.