Delusional. Psychopathic. Arrogant. Greedy. Pick any of those words, because they all apply to investment scammer Bernard Madoff.

Madoff stands accused of running the biggest Ponzi scheme in history. These schemes work like this: At the beginning, a good-looking, well-coiffed financial adviser like Madoff persuades some wealthy people to give him money to "invest." He promises outlandish earnings results. He takes their money but it is never truly invested.

From there, the adviser continuously solicits new investors, and he increasingly recruits more of them. He uses some of this new money to pay "earnings" to the earlier investors, who like the results they think they're seeing -- at least for a while -- and provide testimony to new investors whom the adviser continues to recruit. All along the way, the adviser skims off the money and lives a profanely lavish lifestyle.

These schemes can blow up in short order or they can go on for years. In Madoff's case, federal officials say, the con operated for decades.

The problem is, sooner or later, the adviser cannot find enough new investors to keep paying "earnings" to the previous ones. The upside-down pyramid collapses under its own weight.

Federal officials say Madoff bilked investors, many of them banks and money managers from around the world, out of $50 billion. The victims stand little chance of getting much of their money back. Madoff's assets will be liquidated and redistributed.

The securities industry runs an entity called the Securities Investor Protection Corp. that could offer some relief, but experts say the fund can by no means cover $50 billion in losses. Besides, it insures individual investors up to only $500,000 apiece.

Madoff's list of victims is as prestigious as it is lengthy: Yeshiva University in New York, could lose up to $14.5 million; the employee-pension fund run by the city of Fairfield, Conn., has $42 million in exposure; New York University could lose $24 million. Other investors included actor-couple Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgewick, and Oscar-winning film director Steven Spielberg.

Add to that list Daniel Goldenson, a publisher and conservationist who lives in Bremen. Goldenson, a well-known philanthropist in midcoast Maine, told a federal judge that he may have lost $2.5 million by investing money with the Ascot Fund. The Ascot Fund, in turn, had invested money with Madoff.

Goldenson has gone to court because he hopes to make sure indirect victims in this case -- people who invested money with firms that invested with Madoff -- are not forgotten when Madoff's assets are divvied up. Goldenson has a valid point, that indirect investors were hurt as much as direct investors were. U.S. District Court Judge Louis L. Stanton has said he may take up the matter. We believe that he should.

Madoff, a 70-year-old man who at one point headed the NASDAQ Stock Market, reportedly has told federal agents that his investment scheme was a fraud. He is under house arrest, has been charged with securities fraud and could spend the rest of his life in prison.

That will provide little comfort to his victims. They have lost billions collectively and probably wish they'd heeded that time-honored warning when it comes to investing money: If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.