Cramer: Madoff Cuffed, but Damage Not Done

Just what this market needed: the highest profile hedge-fund scandal I may have ever seen -- Bernie Madoff's arrest today. This guy ran $17 billion for the wealthiest of the wealthy and the most clued-in of customers. $17 billion! As my friend Doug Kass says, this one is bigger than Bayou -- heck, bigger than Boesky.

When Boesky got busted, there was an instant backlash by the public against the securities markets -- people figured they were rigged and then they got confirmation.

With the nonsense we see daily with the Exxons and the Chevrons and the JP Morgans and the Goldmans and the last hour of trading with the Pro Ultra ETFs, it is easy to believe that things can be rigged and I believe they are in a bizarrely legal way blessed by the SEC.

But this is obviously different. It's a gigantic Ponzi scheme, he allegedly told his employees, and that means still more billions of dollars that are lost. ...