The "bogeyman" in many cultures is a folkloric or legendary ghostlike monster.
The bogeyman has no specific appearance, and conceptions of the monster can vary drastically even 
among families and communities. In most cases the bogeyman has no clear appearance in the mind of a child, but is an amorphous embodiment of terror.
In a misguided effort to make them behave, less educated parents may threaten their child with the cruel statement that if he or she is naughty, "The bogeyman will get you."
Under My Bed
I don't know about you, but as a small child, there were times in my darkened bedroom when I was afraid even to look under my bed, lest that feared bogeyman would get me!
And those were in the ancient days when there was no mind screwing television, only The Inner Sanctum and a few other shows on the radio, that created mythical characters that were feared in the mind's eye.
During the era of old time radio, I recall The Inner Sanctum, and its host "Raymond," (he with the creepy voice and squeaking door), a show that gave us listeners grizzly tales of murder and madness, evoking enough chills to keep us breathless. It was a tightly formatted show with horror and suspense designed to keep you on the edge of your chair or holding tightly to your sheets if you were listening just before bedtime. It featured spine-tingling stories of ghosts, murderers, lunatics, vampires, wolf men, zombies and man-eating plants.
Just right for creating that bogeyman under my little bed.
Bigger, Better Bogeymen
But, as the more observant well know, the bogeyman concept can be used metaphorically to demonize persons, whole groups, or things in a conscious effort to promote irrational fears in the minds of the less informed.
Thus the Jews became Hitler's bogeyman -- and in the world of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, the leftist media and big spending politicians such as U.S. Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), "offshore" is a major bogeyman.
The political Left never misses a chance to put forth new explanations as to why individual Americans and business banking, investing and engaging in financial activity offshore must be suspected of crimes and tax evasion, (notwithstanding that it is legal to conduct all such activities).
I often quote (and will here again) a United States assistant attorney general during the Clinton administration that I heard tell an audience that at the U.S. Justice Department the policy was to assume that any and all offshore financial activity was probably illegal. (So much for the constitutional presumption of innocence!)
The Madoff Offshore Bogeyman
In the last 25 years the IRS and leftist politicians, hungry for ever more tax revenues, regularly have trotted out one after another reason as to why "going offshore" financially was wrong, immoral and, probably fattening. Tax havens in particular became the focus of their attacks.
First it was the excuse of the (now failed) "war on drugs" since drug kingpins were alleged to be hiding millions offshore. No proof was offered. Then, after the 9-11, 2001 terror attacks, the attacking terrorists' cash was said to be hidden offshore -- a claim absolutely disproved subsequently. Then it was the Enron scandal, the Parmalat bankruptcy, the Liechtenstein bank records theft, and now comes the latest of this dubious string of anti-offshore attacks.
You guessed it -- now the evil Bernie Madoff is the latest trumped up "proof" that offshore is evil.
The Usual Suspects The New York Times 
prosecutors are beginning to consider what role offshore fund operations may have played in the $50 billion Ponzi scheme that Mr. Madoff is accused of orchestrating. Of particular interest is whether Mr. Madoff and some of his investors used funds based in offshore tax havens to evade American taxes, according to a person briefed on the investigation."
Well, folks, most of the decade-long Madoff chicanery and fraud took place onshore right under the nose of a somnolent SEC..
Does that automatically make all domestic American financial activity suspect? (Put aside the fact that, at the moment, all U.S. banks and Wall Street qualify as what Claude Rains’ crafty Inspector Reynaud called in the classic flick Casablanca, "the usual suspects.")
Strictly Legal
Yes, Virginia, for the moment, forget the bogeyman. Obama pending, it still is legal to bank, invest, protect your assets and do business offshore -- so take advantage of these freedoms while you still can.
For more information about offshore banking, investing, finances in general and tax havens, see my book, Where To Stash Your Cash, Tax Havens of the World.
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