In all the coverage of the Madoff guilty plea, it was hard not feel sorry for all the victims, some of whom were quite famous. A columnist in the New York Times offers a contrarian take, suggesting that the victims certainly bear some responsibility for their loss.

"Isn't the first lesson of personal finance that you should never put all your money with one person or one fund? Even if you think your money manager is God? Diversification has many virtues; one of them is that you won't lose everything if one of your money managers turns out to be a crook," says Joe Nocera. 

The fact is that a lot of the people who invested with Madoff were quite rich and sophisticated. They might have played it safer. Institutions in general, were much more sophisticated about their due diligence and were much less likely to invest. 

For more:
- here's the column [1]

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The big mystery in the Madoff case [2]
Taking on Madoff not easy [3]
Role of Bernard Madoff's wife questioned [4]