Given the list that's already out, I'm guessing $50 billion isn't going to to be the full amount EATED by Madoff. Might have notionally been a fund with $50 billion in assets, but he'd been taking money from new investors and giving it to existing ones so who knows just how many people got screwed.
And someone wrote me to point out that there's a lot of collateral damage here. Charitable foundations and similar are being destroyed by this and laying off workers.
