Preview

The Bernie Madoff System Collapse

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
481 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Bernie Madoff System Collapse
The Bernie Madoff fraud happened because of greed. All of the people involved wanted more and more money and eventually the system collapsed. On March 12, 2009, Bernie Madoff pled guilty to the largest Ponzi scheme in history. He successfully took $65 billion from investors that trusted him with their money.

Why the fraud case was created
Bernie Madoff had his investors believe that they were making a lot of money through his investment firm (Bernard Madoff Securities), by creating false trade reports. His firm used a computer program that his employees used to backdate trades and manipulate account statements by entering in a false closing trade in the amount of the required profit for each of his customers. He also set up his portfolios

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The Bernard Madoff “Ponzi Scheme” scandal was the biggest and lasted the longest financial fraud in the history of the US. Bernard Madoff was a financial adviser, and also the former chairman of the NADAQ. He established his investment firm named “Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC” in 1960. The Madoff Fraud is a typical “Ponzi Scheme”, in order to attract investors to give money to him, he convinced people to hand over their life saving, and promised them high returns rate, and then he used these money to make payments to those earlier investors. He took the investors for a $65 billion over the course of nearly two decades. In the end, Bernard was sentenced to maximum 150 years prison life and a forfeiture of $170 billion.…

    • 324 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    First, Bernard Madoff started a stock trading business in 1960 that was highly successful. This business consisted of buying and selling stocks that were not on the New York Stock Exchange. Conversely, once Pete Madoff came into the business, Bernard created the investment management business, which is where the fraud occurred. Bernard was a respected businessperson that served on boards and even created his own foundation. In the financial industry, Bernard Madoff was a powerful person with several…

    • 396 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Bernie Madoff is known as The Great Ponzi. Bernie Madoff is a former American businessman,…

    • 349 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Bernard L. Madoff (Bernie) is still making news headlines. He is currently incarcerated for numerous illegal and unethical behaviors. I am going to: Describe three types of illegal business behavior alleged against Bernie and explain how the behavior is illegal or unethical. Name three types of parties who were impacted by the actions of Bernie and how. Describe three business safeguards that may have prevented the harm caused by Bernie. Describe three ways investors might have better protected themselves from risk. Describe three legal actions that possibly may be brought against Bernie under criminal or civil law. And provide an analysis…

    • 1722 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    One hundred and fifty years in prison. Shame brought to his family for bankrupting so many friends. Suicide by his son. These are the costs Bernie Madoff incurred for running a decades-long Ponzi scheme that appropriated an estimated $18 billion from investors. If Madoff was just maximizing his income, then why did so many cheer when he did the "perp…

    • 61 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    1. What unhealthy motivations drove Madoff to defraud investors and betray his friends? The motivation is selfishness. This is based on noted greed (extravagant lifestyle and the need to continuously take more money), narcissism (feeling of entitlement and ignoring welfare of others), and Machiavellianism (manipulation of others for self-gain, creating positive impressions while he gets what he wants).…

    • 701 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The organizational leadership of Bernard L Madoff Investments Securities LLC was held by Bernie Madoff himself. Madoff’s charismatic leadership style included seducing friends, those in secluded groups, and even his own employees. Madoff seduced his clients by making them to believe they were investing in something special, he would often turn people away, which helped Bernie in courting people and charities with more assets to offer. Madoff started his investment advisory firm by inviting Jewish people, many of whom belonged to exclusive country clubs as well as Jewish charities to buy in. These people would then become networkers for Madoff, by allowing other investors to buy in to the Ponzi Scheme Bernie was running.…

    • 276 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Bernie Madoff did not work alone. One reason is because a scheme of this magnitude would have been difficult for one man, even one as smart as Madoff, to pull off alone. Because of his long career and the amounts being traded at the end of 2009, the probable answer is that some people involved with Madoff were knowingly skirting financial rules and procedures. Some should be made aware of the legal fuzziness that exists within the financial sector. Such fuzziness has, in part, been deliberately created either by rule omissions or by tactics that circumvent such rules. The SEC cannot hold individuals criminally liable for breaking SEC rules. The SEC can fine companies and ostracize people and firms from publicly trading on financial exchanges, but that is all.…

    • 282 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme was life altering for numerous individuals who trusted in Madoff with their life savings and hard-earned wealth. Although the original scandal made headline news over eight years ago lawsuits and other remnants still remain. In 2013, one of largest organizations that people believe contributed the J.P. Morgan (JPM) agreed to settlement with a onetime payment of $billion dollars (J.P. Morgan Chase Will Have To Pay A Fine, 2013). Although many believe that JPM was the blame for not breaking the news of the Ponzi scheme sooner due to obvious red flags related the Madoff laundering money in and out of accounts held at the bank, JPM has still taking the stance that they were not to blame. Furthermore, in 2015, another…

    • 346 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Bernie Madoff Essay

    • 203 Words
    • 1 Page

    Bernie Madoff held numerous high profile positions in the stock market community. I would even go as far as to label him as the master of networking. After graduating from Hofstra College, he marries his high school sweetheart, and proceeds to work for his father-in-law’s accounting firm as an investment advisor (Gaviria, Smith, & McCoy, 2009). As Madoff’s trading business grows over the next several years, he joins multiple committees as he begins to fight for regulatory changes in order to make trades easier and more convenient, not to mention he had been in business for decades. This gives Bernie Madoff the persona that he is educated, responsible, and respectable; which leads his to be trusted by many investors. (Ferrell, Fraedrich, &…

    • 203 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Modern Day Visigoth

    • 678 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Although considered to have an Athenian education at the University of Alabama and Hofstra University, Madoff’s intentions were focused primarily on earning money. As a result, he briefly attended Brooklyn Law School, but founded the Wall Street firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC and remained working for his own company. His company grew with the substantial amount of loans received from family, committees, and investors. The firm grew famous for its reliable annual returns of 10 percent or more. In order to compete with other firms, Madoff decided to use innovative computer information technology to disperse its quotes. The program that the firm tested and helped to develop became the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations, or NASDAQ. Madoff later served as president of the board of directors for the NASDAQ stock exchange.…

    • 678 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    It wasn’t done alone. Madoff had help from colleagues and it is even suspected that some of his family members were involved due to the fact that he brought in a lot of family members to the job over the years including his sons. His sons were actually the ones who reported him to federal authorities. Some people who were involved were Frank Avellino, Frank DiPascali, and Jeffery Picower. In order for the prosecutors to bring Madoff to court, they had to go through a series of junior employees and squeeze as much information from them to have enough supporting details and evidence to move up on the table. “Madoff had dealings with a variety of banks and hedge funds, and burned Madoff investors have tried to recoup funds from some of them. Madoff held an account at JPMorgan Chase that he used to shuffle money between offices in London and New York. In 2011, two Madoff investors sued the bank for $19 million, claiming they aided in his fraud, according to CNN. At the time, a JPMorgan spokesman dismissed the lawsuit as meritless.”…

    • 1418 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Bernie Madoff Ethics

    • 1459 Words
    • 6 Pages

    This paper will discuss the matters of Bernard “Bernie” Madoff. Are his actions to be deemed unethical, immoral, or both immoral and unethical? Madoff plead guilty to conducting his $65 billion Ponzi scheme. This in turn led him to be charged with several counts of money laundering amongst other things. His world came crumbling down around him the day after the company’s Christmas party in December of 2008.…

    • 1459 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Bernard Madoff

    • 1489 Words
    • 6 Pages

    In court, he stated that he began by promising strong returns even though the stock market was not doing very well and the country was in a recession during the 90’s. Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC was his firm that was used to con thousands of people out of their money, some of the funds provided by his customers were, life savings or retirement funds. Madoff was not shy to admit that he knew the day…

    • 1489 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Bernie Madoff was a thief, plain and simple. He was a greedy, selfish, self-indulgent con artist, no different from any other grifter that you meet, except because of who he was, he was able to pull the con off on a grander scale. Madoff used his name and position and the legitimacy of his first business to draw people into his Ponzi scheme (like a pyramid scheme where one takes money from newer clients to pay older clients). He misrepresented (the kinder word) or lied (if you want the truthful description) to his friends and clients from the beginning and as later documented in his allocution, he never invested any of the money he got. It would have been different if this scheme formed from some bad business decisions and he did this in response to that and was trying to save some of his client’s money, but it wasn’t. Madoff originally provided his clients the 10-12% returns on investment that he offered, but it appears that with the increase in funds, the persons that benefitted the most from the Ponzi scheme was Madoff and his family. They all shared in an expensive and lavish lifestyle bordering on the garish with its excesses. He appeared to hire incompetent people so no one would be the wiser to what he was doing which was a disservice to his clientele. He also appeared to have used some of his misbegotten gains and infused them into his legitimate business therefore, putting it at risk. Nepotism was rampant in Madoff’s business which is why many people believe his family had to be involved more than just the sons and the confession of the scheme.…

    • 1171 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics