If you’ve ever said we’ve been a little harsh on Bernie Madoff over the years, that we shouldn’t be so quick to judge him until we’ve walked a mile in his shoes, I have good news: now we can walk that mile. Or Alyx can, she’s into running and such.

Yes, circle November 13 on your calendars, and be at the Sheraton New York Hotel & Towers or…don’t be, really, I guess that’s entirely up to you. We probably won’t be, if we’re being completely honest. But that’s when the DoJ is auctioning off some more of Bernie’s ill-gotten stuff, including that very pair of monogrammed velvet slippers, the perfect gift for that person on your gift list whose initials are BLM and who also happens to have a fetish for Ponzi toejam.

Which, of course, is every person on your gift list.

Time to get Officer Jenny to help out the SEC on the case of busting Ponzi schemers. Bernie Madoff’s swank UES digs have a new owner, and it’s the guy who brought us stuff like Pokemon and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:

The businessman behind Cabbage Patch dolls and his wife have snatched up Bernard Madoff’s Upper East Side penthouse. Patsy Kahn says her husband, Al, “was worried about the karma.” But she fell in love with the view of the Manhattan skyline from the 64th Street penthouse.

Al Kahn is chairman and CEO at 4Kids Entertainment Inc., a licensing company whose properties have included Pokemon and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He is also credited with helping to make Cabbage Patch dolls a phenomenon in the 1980s.

We understand he’ll be using one room of the penthouse as a Pokemon training center and closing the Rustboro Gym, so neighbors will need to get used to violent electrical surges as Pikachus work on becoming Raichus (and restoring the karma of the place). This asset sale also presumably puts investors eight-some-odd-million closer to getting their $65 billion in misappropriated funds restored, so, yay!

After several submarine missions proved the Baltic Sea to be barren of vampire squid, Germany is ready to search for speculators in other arenas, namely the currency market:

Germany’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told the Bundestag on March 16 that the country may have to consider ordering “intelligence agencies to set up surveillance of who is getting together with whom for which kinds of speculative processes, and where” to protect the euro.

“I find it sinister and silly, it is a complete overreaction,” said Philip Whyte of the Centre for European Reform, a pro-European Union research institute in London. “There is a certain school of thought in continental Europe that everything is always the fault of hedge funds.” Schaeuble’s comments reflected “a longstanding paranoia about the Anglo-Saxon model of capitalism.”

Finger-pointing at the hedgies seems to have been a bigger and longer-standing hobby over there than it is over here, even. Well, at the US and UK hedgies, of course. In 2005, their vice-chancellor was referring to hedge funds as faceless swarms of locusts who came to eat Kinder Eggs and devour companies, and they were all out of Kinder Eggs. Current chancellor Angela Merkel hasn’t given anywhere near as interesting a soundbite, but she’s partnered with Nicolas Sarkozy to try to limit any speculation on the creditworthiness of their governments, though we’re not sure which of them stuck that line item to eliminate international tariffs on imports of platform shoes in the proposal. In the wake of all that betting on Greece to board the failboat I know they have to look like they’re doing something but really, how is this going to work? Are they going to actually cross the pond and plant German spies at Cipriani listening in on every guy in a suit who happens to mention the euro? If I buy puts on $FXE will I denied entrance to Oktoberfest?

Bernie’s son Andy is apparently getting ready for it all to turn into The Road:

Andrew Madoff, 43, applied for a license to keep a handgun in his swanky Upper East Side pad more than six months ago — and his name appears on NYPD and state police lists of approved permit holders.

This despite Andrew’s allegedly punching out a former employee on the street and going through an ugly divorce.

A high-ranking NYPD insider said Andrew’s dust-up with ex-worker Reed Abend in January should have disqualified him.

There’s some debate – while the State Police say he’s on the roster, NYPD is less sure: “Asked about Madoff’s permit, the NYPD then said its records were wrong — that he applied but has not been approved.”

(Interestingly, NYPost reports Donald Trump is also packing heat.)

Jason and I spent some time a few days ago discussing whether or not Bernie Madoff really “fell outta bed” or whether some investor who still had a dime or two to rub together might have ordered a beatdown, so we do understand Andy’s paranoia, at least. That he applied for a license but noone knows for sure whether he is actually licensed or not probably says a lot more about bureaucracy in general than it does about Andrew Madoff.

And, of course – apologies for the lack of updates over the holiday. Among other distractions, a friend of your dear bloggers delivered a 7lb 1oz baby girl (O hai, Quinn!) on Christmas Day, and LoLo cooked up a really mean turducken, so we hope you understand.

Perhaps the only relief from the specter of association with Bernie Madoff is the sweet release of death. Reporting, as solemnly as is possible around here, the death of Bernie Madoff’s associate Jeffry Picower, of the kind of natural causes that could take down any garden-variety fatcat:

A man accused of making more than $7 billion off the investment schemes of jailed financial manager Bernard Madoff drowned after having a heart attack, authorities said Monday.

Jeffry Picower, 67, was found around noon Sunday by his wife, Barbara, at the bottom of a pool at their oceanside mansion.

“He’s at the bottom of the pool. It’s too deep. I can’t get him out,” she cried hysterically on the emergency call. “He must have collapsed … I can’t get him out … I don’t know how long he’s been there.”

She eventually pulled him from the water with help from a housekeeper. He died a short time later at a nearby hospital.

An autopsy conducted Monday found he suffered a heart attack and drowned, said Dr. Michael Bell, chief medical examiner for Palm Beach County. The death has been ruled accidental, and the heart attack was brought on by heart disease.

RIP, Jeffry. The litigation against his estate, of course, where the Madoff trustee seeks to recover the aforementioned seven bil, will go on.