Markopolos vs. Madoff - a hero is born. Plus, forensic accountants: the modern day doctors or lawyers?

By definition a hero is a person "of distinguished courage or ability, admired for brave deeds and noble qualities." When pondering modern day heroes, Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger stands tall at the top of the list. Not only did he skillfully land an Airbus 320 into the Hudson River, but then he searched the plane twice making sure all 150 passengers and crew had safely escaped. Sully is the complete package with the good looks and pedigree - he even called the local library to alert them that he lost one of their books in the crash.

Is it possible for someone armed with a slight comb-over and a slew of complex spreadsheets to be designated a hero? Although his Facebook page has less than 100 fans (in comparions to Sully's 556,000), Harry Markopolos (pictured up top) is not only one of the greatest vigilant consumers ever, he is definitely a true modern hero. In his mind, the decade long journey to untangle and expose the Ponzi scheme being perpetuated by Bernie Madoff was a complete failure. After all, the scheme did not unravel as a result of his efforts and it led to at least one victim's suicide - this was not a simple boiler room (see video) operation.

The failure and guilt weigh entirely on the conscience of the SEC and so called journalists who missed this golden opportunity that Markopolos delivered to them on a silver platter (if you read my earlier post on why the newspaper industry is dying, here is a another reason - a complete lack of investigative journalism). Without Markopolos's detailed records, the SEC may have escaped from this scandal unscathed. As this unassuming finance geek told the world via his testimony before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises, ""The SEC is also captive to the industry it regulates and it is afraid of bringing big cases against the largest most powerful firms." More importantly, he has the documents to back up his claim (if you are really having a hard time falling asleep, click here to read his 2005 submission to the SEC).

Markopolos feared for his life as he gathered this information and tried to alert the authorities. It may have taken more than 8 years and losses of $50 billion, but due to Markopolos's heroic efforts, we are certain to see drastic changes in the way the SEC conducts itself. Even though he didn't officially defeat Madoff (and his Gordon Geckoesque shenanigans), he does claim to have a smaller $1 billion scheme (Stewie Griffin sized - see video) that he will be exposing shortly.

Meantime, the government is scrambling to find qualified forensic accountants to make sense of all this madness. I doubt we will be seeing a Law and Order Forensic Accountants spin off anytime soon (I yawned just thinking about it), but with such a high demand for their services (and so few experts in this area) they will be able to demand rock-star salaries, especially in this fraud and bankruptcy plagued economy. Don't be surprised if your mom calls trying to set you up with the son of her friend from the bridge group. No, he's not a doctor or a lawyer. He's a forensic accountant!