Preview

Bernie Madoff Ethics

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1459 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Bernie Madoff Ethics
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.

It all began in Laurelton, New York where Bernie, his brother Peter, and their older sister Sondra were raised. His parents both Ralph and Sylvia ended up being in trouble with the government on separate occasions. His father Ralph got in trouble with the government because he owed a tax debt. “Along with three people, he owed a tax
…show more content…
His acts were neither right nor good. Normally morals are taught to you by your parents or who ever is raising you. In this case we I can see where his morals may have been a tad bit screwed up because of the things his parents had done. While he was growing up his parents were caught up into some rather immoral things so maybe he figured it would be alright for him to do the same things, but take it too the next level. Even if his parents did corrupt his morals he had to have a lesson in school on not stealing from others. I remember that from elementary school. Therefore a light bulb should have gone off in his head and his heart when he began to steal all of that money. His parents should have taught him that taking what does not belong to him is called stealing and it is neither right nor good. He should have known that he would not get away with stealing forever and that one day it would catch up with him. He should have stopped a long time ago and then maybe he could have held onto some of his dignity. It still wouldn’t be right if he did stop a long time ago, but then he wouldn’t have stolen so much money from so many people. Either way it goes what he did was definitely immoral and I don’t think that there is anybody out there that would

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

    In the case of Bernard Madoff, an overview was provided that describes the fraud of the century. As a result of the Ponzi scheme, social attitudes toward the investment industry were lukewarm. I will describe the highlights of the case.…

    • 396 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Professional auditing standards discuss the three key “conditions” that are typically present when a financial fraud occurs and identify a lengthy list of “fraud risk factors.” Briefly explain the difference between a fraud “condition” and a “fraud risk factors,” and provide examples of each. What fraud conditions and fraud risk factors were apparently present in the Madoff case?…

    • 1261 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful 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

    MADOFF CASE

    • 341 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Question 2: Suppose that a large investment firm had approximately 10 percent of its total assets invested in funds managed by Madoff Securities. What audit procedures should the investment firm’s independent auditors have applied to those assets?…

    • 341 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    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.…

    • 481 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Best Essays

    Describe three types of illegal business behavior alleged against Mr. Madoff and for each type of behavior, explain how the behavior is illegal or unethical in the conduct of business.…

    • 1300 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    Modern Day Visigoth

    • 678 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Bernard Madoff is a modern day Visigoth for several reasons. He is one of the largest white collar criminals of all time. In fact, he has committed one of the most elaborate Ponzi schemes, which is considered to be the largest financial fraud in history. For those who do not know what a Ponzi scheme is – it is a fraudulent investment that pays returns to its investors from their own money, or the money of other investors, rather than through profits of the organization. The scheme entices investors with large amounts of returns or unusually consistent ones. In order to keep the operation running, new investors must contribute to the cash flow. If the scheme is not interrupted by the authorities, it is likely to fall part for reasons such as the promoter vanishing, the insufficient amount of new investors, or external market factors (such as a decline in the economy). Furthermore, Madoff is a former non-executive chairman of the NASDAQ stock market. Madoff is considered to be a Visigoth for his monumental greed of money, poisonous lust for control, and blunt disregard for the well-being of others.…

    • 678 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Bernie Madoff Essay

    • 5930 Words
    • 24 Pages

    References: 1. Arvedlund, E. (2010). Too good to be true: the rise and fall of Bernie Madoff. Penguin Group.…

    • 5930 Words
    • 24 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Many of Thomas Aquinas moral ethics are still relevant today in the United States simply because the natural and human laws are apart of the US Constitution which applies to everyone in the American society. Aquinas simply states a right or wrong solution to his models using works from Aristotle and the bible to justify the three laws he applies. Theft and robbery were acts that went against the natural law. Bernie Madoff was guilty of violating his human rights of the natural law by committing Theft, and Fraud. Bernie Madoff was a well-known and respected stockbroker who committed the largest white-collar crime in Wall Street history. Madoff was found guilty for eleven felony counts and sentenced to 150 years in jail. Madoff used a ponzi scheme to collect investors money giving the investors intentions each person would be promised a gain of ten percent or more. Madoff greed not only affected the rest of his life in a horrific way but it also affected the common good of the community.…

    • 440 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    No One Would Listen

    • 1165 Words
    • 5 Pages

    This book brought out the failures of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in America’s history, as orchestrated by Bernie Madoff. Harry Markopolos caught up with Madoff’s Ponzi scheme earlier on in his career and saw all the red flags. There was no explanation of the continuous one percent yield in over forty five stocks that Madoff dealt with. Madoff took advantage of the laxity by the SEC officials in failing to follow up complains with an investigation, and the trust bestowed upon him by the high and mighty. As long as the public saw paper trail provided by Madoff that the stocks were continuously yielding dividends, there was no cause for alarm. The few people that realized that Madoff was actually pushing a Ponzi scheme alerted the appropriate authorities which in turn let Madoff off with a slap on the wrist. The SEC went to investigate Madoff in his building on the 18th and 19th floor but missed a whole 17th floor where the scam was mainly doing its operations. Over a period of nine years Markopolos alerted the SEC five times about the Ponzi scheme that Madoff was running, but they caught up with him when most of the money was already spent lavishly in gifts and exorbitant parties.…

    • 1165 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Bernie Madoff

    • 1197 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Bernard (Bernie) Madoff committed this century’s largest Ponzi scheme to date. First we will define Ponzi Scheme – it is a fraudulent pyramid scheme where original investors are paid their gains out of new investors money so it would appear to old investor that the scheme (business) is producing an unusually large return (Albrecht, 2009). The Ponzi scheme that Madoff created and pulled off for years was quite intricate. In a standard pyramid scheme each victim unknowingly brings in more and more victims, where as a Ponzi scheme has a single entity (group or individual) to keep up with and organize the fraud. The operator of the Ponzi scheme then will take new money brought in from recent investors and pay off previous investors. For this to continue on there must be a constant influx of new investors so there must be someone working that angle on a regular basis. Eventually the group of new investors will run out because the funds dry up. In a lot of Ponzi schemes when they begin to run low on victims things seem to fall apart and investors loose it all. In some cases the perpetuator escapes the area with all the money he / she have scammed. When or if they are caught the perpetuator will have to face prosecution and / or repayment of all money to victims and possible jail / prison time or pay restitution to the government. In some cases there are assets seized to reimburse victims and pay restitution (Smith, 2011).…

    • 1197 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Best Essays

    Madoff Securities

    • 3488 Words
    • 14 Pages

    Misleading the market, inflating revenues through fictious sales, market manipulation and forged documents were examples of Madoff’s unethical conduct. Ethics refer to the principles that define right or wrong conduct (Robins et al. 2009, p. 183).…

    • 3488 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Bernie Madoff Scandal is considered to be the largest financial and accounting fraud in American history. The details of the scandal itself are so complicated and unbelievable that it appears to be a work of non-fiction. Many have tried to gather enough evidence to make sense of what happened, but there was never enough evidence to prove when the fraud began. Madoff himself said that the scheme began in the late 1980s or early 1990s, but then again we cannot be certain of when it really started. Many lives have been effected by this scandal and cause some significant changes to be made to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).…

    • 1550 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better 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