Breaking news right now is that Bernard Madoff, the same guy who started the current economic downturn the U.S. is in by creating all sorts of economic schemes, was just sentenced to 150 years on prison.

From Huffington Post:

When asked by the judge whether he had anything to say, Madoff slowly stood, leaned forward on the defense table and spoke in a monotone for about 10 minutes. At various times, he referred to his historic fraud as a “problem,” “an error of judgment” and “a tragic mistake.”

He claimed he and his wife were tormented, saying she “cries herself to sleep every night, knowing all the pain and suffering I have caused,” he said. “That’s something I live with, as well.”

He then finally looked at the victims lining the first row of the gallery.

“I will turn and face you,” he said. “I’m sorry. I know that doesn’t help you.”

Afterward, Ruth Madoff _ often a target of victims’ scorn since her husband’s arrest _ broke her silence by issuing a statement through her lawyer. She said she, too, had been misled.

“I am embarrassed and ashamed,” she said. “Like everyone else, I feel betrayed and confused. The man who committed this horrible fraud is not the man whom I have known for all these years.”

At first, I was really happy to read the sentence–but then I read about all these different interactions–and now I’m just sad. We’ve all been screwed so badly. And for some reason that I can’t really explain, it seems wrong that one man is taking responsibility for how fucked the economic system we all live under has screwed us all.