What are they?

So, it seems that an fund manager is a person that manages funds. We, well not me because I don't have any (I'm a hedge fund trader - a hedge for short), give these guys our hard earned money and they spend all their time looking in minute detail at the bazillion of stocks (chicken, beef, fish), shares, exotic cocktails, and shoes on offer and invest wisely. They spend their working day working for us and their sleeping nights sleeping for us. They are so smart and they do a good job. The investments, on the whole, tend to have lots of ups and downs. Which is a bit like life - although the investments tend to have catastrophic downs which makes us feel a lot better since our lives aren't that catastrophic.

They tend to approach investment with an avant-guard philosophy. They are daring. Investments in schemes that perhaps yesterday were shunned are now seen as highly lucrative. It's clear to me that Ponzi schemes are now considered highly profitable 'exotics'. Guaranteeing stable returns even in the case of horrible times. Clearly this is the reason why many invested in Mr Madoff's scheme.