Bernie Madoff Essays (Examples)

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Bernie Madoff's story is a very interesting tale of greed and deception. The actions of him and many of his associates present interesting questions about the occurrence of crime in financial industries. The purpose of this essay is to analyze the behavior of Madoff and his involvement in his ponzi scheme. This essay will also investigate some of the laws that exist to control white color crime and contrast those laws to street crimes. Finally this essay will examine how cultural norms with regard to white-collar crime has shifted in the last decade and the impacts of those shifts.
Madoff's Behavior

It is impossible to understand totally what Bernie Madoff was thinking as he conducted his scam. It appears that greed and the desire to appear successful and rich may have contributed to his behavior. The upper echelons of society are very competitive and many will do anything to win. This appears….

Bernie Madoff's Fraud
The United States economy has experienced tremendous challenges related to financial practices including illegal fiscal activities and practices. An example of an illegitimate financial activity that hurts the country's economy is Ponzi schemes and other fraudulent activities. The largest Ponzi scheme yet was orchestrated by Bernie Madoff whose fraudulent mechanism crossed several continents. Bernie Madoff's scheme is regarded as the largest one yet since it took something bigger larger than the scheme to bring it to an end i.e. The 2008 global economic recession. Bernie Madoff's success in conducting the fraud provides insights regarding the operations of Ponzi schemes, human nature, and the role of regulatory agencies in preventing and dealing with fraudulent financial activities.

A Ponzi scheme is basically defined as a financial investment strategy that promises large returns to investors. However, the scheme differs from valid investment strategies on the promise that payment to investors is made….

Bernie Madoff
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.

In the general sense, Madoff was accused of running a Ponzi scheme. This is a form of "pyramid scheme" in which essentially returns are paid to existing investors out of the principal being taken from new investors, eventually leading (as Madoff's scheme did) to a collapse when the entire system runs out of capital and investors cannot regain any of their own investment. Here is the official definition offered by the SEC (2011):

A Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud that involves the payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors. Ponzi scheme organizers often solicit new investors by promising to invest funds in opportunities claimed to generate high returns with little or no risk. In….

Although Bernie Madoff eventually received justice for his crimes, the case study reveals the structural problems inherent in the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). An independent financial fraud investigator, Harry Markopolis, had delivered a critical smoking gun to the SEC, which summarily ignored the information. The situation suggests corruption at the highest levels of government and finance, if not full collusion and conspiracy. One of the problems with the SEC is that it seems to be deliberately populated by personnel who cannot actually prevent financial fraud. As the case study points out, the SEC personnel primarily consists of young attorneys and “lifelong government employees,” many of whom end up working by the very same investment firms that were under SEC investigation (p. 2). Another problem with the SEC seems to be its lax attitude towards financial fraud, evident by the way it dismissed the Markopolis information out of hand. The SEC….

That immediately lead Markopolos to suspect that Madoff might not have ever even traded shares at all but was simply managing a tremendous Ponzi scheme, disguising the dispensation of new clients' money as dividends and investment income paid out to exiting clients (Markopolos, et al., 2010).
However, Markopolos also suspected that Madoff was involved in an illegal operation for a reason entirely distinct from any of the sophisticated mathematical methods that he used to analyze the supposed trading strategy itself. Specifically, he suspected Madoff because his professional behavior was so bizarre: Madoff, head of a prominent New York brokerage firm, would maintain a secretive money management business operation "on the side" of his mainstream business and why he would furnish his hedge fund management services to his hundreds of wealthy investors without ever charging a fee for his services (Leor, 2010; Markopolos, et al., 2010).

Markopolos's Multiple Unsuccessful Attempts to Alert….

Madoff and the Ethics of Business
The author's viewpoint is objective and factual: it relates the episode in history regarding Bernie Madoff's "ponzi scheme" and shows how he was able to pull it off for so long, essentially lying to all of his clients, regardless of their individual worth and/or fame (Stanwick, Stanwick, p. 258).

The major issue presented in this case is the lack of transparency that Madoff showed (a major ethical issue) and the too-good-to-be-true promise of returns that no one else in the investment sector was able to give. Another issue was his closed trading system as well as the fact that there was no correlation between Madoff's reported trade volume and the volume of the S&P options market -- someone was lying. Why the SEC failed to find any evidence of wrongdoing for so many years on Madoff's part should raise questions about the credibility of the SEC.….

Business Ethics - Contemporary Case 2: Madoff's Investment Firm
The investment Ponzi scheme of Bernie Madoff and his hedge fund for wealthy clients was a major violation of ethics by Madoff, as he showed a severe lack of transparency (hiding his actions and never divulging how his trades were profitable) and a consistent habit of lying to clients by using one's fund to pay off another. Madoff's investment firm was essentially based on deception: he promised extraordinarily high returns on investments made the world's wealthy elite -- and so long as they did not all attempt to withdraw their investment at the same time, and so long as new investors continued to come to the firm, Madoff had enough capital on hand to pay out the promised returns. The fact that he did not actually make profitable investments with his clients' money, however, while claiming that he did so, is what….

The Greatest Ponzi Scheme
PAGES 4 WORDS 1237

Madoff Securities case occurred because of fraudulent investment schemes due to lack of regulation as well as insufficient oversight of specific financial intermediaries along with dismissal of opportunistic behavior. To understand why such an incident happened in the first place, it is important to identify the kind of scheme led by Madoff. It is called a Ponzi scheme. In a Ponzi scheme, an unsustainably big pool of investors must be maintained to keep it afloat. It begins with a simple promise to a few investors of doubling an amount they decided to invest. Rather than investing that money and doubling it, the person involved in the scheme takes money from a successive round of investors and the scheme continues (Knapp, 2011). The formula is ROI-R-I.
The reason why the Ponzi scheme went unnoticed for so long was partly because of Madoff's reputation and a huge regulatory hole. This major discrepancy some….

Over the course of time, assertive laws are evolving which are supposed to deal with any issues quickly. This means that all financial firms will face higher costs and greater amounts of time in complying with these new guidelines. ("Dodd Frank")
Conclusion

Clearly, the Bernard Madoff scandal reshaped investor confidence and the regulatory environment. This is because many of his clients suffered tremendously from the firm's activities. In some cases, individuals were forced to sell their homes. While at other times, many nonprofits were forced into bankruptcy from being overly exposed. This resulted in the trustee utilizing aggressive tactics in recovering assets.

These actions set the stage for regulators, actuaries and fiduciaries to begin taking a more assertive stance when protecting the interests of the public. As a result, much stricter guidelines are being imposed. These areas are impacting the operating procedures of firms and how they are accounting for investor funds.….

Ethical behavior of a person or a corporation greatly affects the stakeholders with which that person is involved. Often, people and companies take serious consideration when it comes to those stakeholders, and they work to take good care of the people who are involved with them (Keller, 2002). There have been cases, though, where ethical behavior has been ignored in the name of profit. Eventually, most companies and people who ignore their ethics are caught and punished, but not before they end up harming the financial and emotional lives of many of their stakeholders. Plato once said that the nature and the origin of justice was that men who were capable of doing wrong to other people would often do so. He also said that men who did not have enough strength to keep themselves from being harmed by others would not do harm to other people.
In other words, if….

Thomas Pynchon, Bleeding Edge
One hallmark of postmodern literature is a willingness to mingle high and low registers, and to subvert popular and recognizable genres of literature with material that might seem foreign or that frustrates customary expectations. By any standard, Thomas Pynchon is one of America's pre-eminent postmodern novelists, and his 2013 novel Bleeding Edge follows both of these customary procedures. I hope to demonstrate that Pynchon's purpose in Bleeding Edge is twofold: he is engaged in "historical fiction," but of a peculiar sort -- writing about the very recent past, in a novel that covers the events of September 11, 2001 -- and he is also writing a postmodern detective novel. In both ways, Pynchon is able to indulge a crucial theme which critics have identified as being central to his work as a whole: the idea of paranoia.

On the surface, Bleeding Edge would appear to be a novel….

In the first-round survey, a majority of investors cited diversification as their main objective in allocating to hedge funds. Among the second-round interviewees who were planning to increase their target allocations by 10% or more, half named diversification as the motivating factor. Among the approximately one in ten who were planning to decrease allocations by at least 10%, concern with a lack of transparency was the most frequently cited reason.
(4) Institutions are thinking and acting as long-term investors. While almost a quarter of second-round interviewees said they have liquidated some investments or plan to do so, overall the investors surveyed showed no inclination toward a long-term exodus from hedge funds. This is understandable, considering that 93% of all interviewees said they make hedge fund investments with a time horizon of at least three years, and more than half have a time horizon of five years or more.

(5) Investors are,….

Economic crash can be viewed from a number of perspectives ranging from causes and effects to the 2008 Crash's resemblance to the Crash of 1929, which began the Great Depression. This paper will consider the 2008 recession from the standpoint of the financial banking industry, which, according to economic journalists like Matt Taibbi (2010), played a major and significant role in the crumbling of the nation's economy -- just like it did in the Lawless Decade also known as the oaring Twenties.
Big Banking Meets Big Government

What has now become known as the Era of De-egulation actually had its beginnings in the 80s decade known just as much for its rampant excess as the early 20s were known for their unbridled lawlessness. Yet, while the latter enjoyed the snubs-to-the-law bootlegging speakeasies, the former enjoyed the merging of the financial sector with the political -- which began during eagan's tenure in the….

Christianity and Business
PAGES 5 WORDS 1680

Your Name INDS 400-001
August 06, 2014
Business and Religion
IPS Integration Essay
Cognate/Career Synthesis Paper:
Incorporating a Christian orldview
MLA
Presented in Partial Fulfillment
EDU 400: Capstone
Your Name
John Doe
EDU 400-001
06 August 2014
Business and Religion Synthesis:
Incorporating a Christian orldview
Incorporating a more Christian worldview would be largely beneficial to a range of careers as such a perspective can help guide all endeavors along a more moralistic path. The last decade or so has brought us some of the most staggering corporate scandals that the human race has ever known. These were scandals which crippled the economy and which brought the nation to untold amounts of financial struggle and unhappiness. To this day, the government and private businesses are still working manically hard to dig the country out of a completely destructive great recession. The more we understand how such corporate scandals were started and enabled in the first place, the better prepared we….

Financial Practice
PAGES 2 WORDS 677

working on financial practice problems can help students to apply key concepts and principles.
Understanding various financial practice problems will help all students to ensure that they have a foundation for knowing how money and the world of finance works. This is important because, it will serve as foundation that will allow everyone to be prepared for: objectively evaluating their business, personal finances and investments. Once this takes place, it means that we can make more prudent financial decision by: avoiding common mistakes. As, these tools will help everyone in: identifying potential frauds and it will give us a sense of reality. This is the point that these ideas will prevent us from making critical errors that could have a dramatic impact upon: our net worth and the kinds of decisions that will have an effect on our future.

A good example of individuals who were never able to learn this….

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4 Pages
Essay

Criminal Justice

Bernie Madoff's Story Is a Very Interesting

Words: 1096
Length: 4 Pages
Type: Essay

Bernie Madoff's story is a very interesting tale of greed and deception. The actions of him and many of his associates present interesting questions about the occurrence of crime…

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2 Pages

Economics

Bernie Madoff's Fraudulent Financial Activities

Words: 724
Length: 2 Pages
Type:

Bernie Madoff's Fraud The United States economy has experienced tremendous challenges related to financial practices including illegal fiscal activities and practices. An example of an illegitimate financial activity that hurts…

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5 Pages
Essay

Economics

Bernard Lawrence Bernie Madoff

Words: 1504
Length: 5 Pages
Type: Essay

Bernie Madoff 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…

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1 Pages
Essay

Finance

The Failure of SEC to notice bernie madoff

Words: 338
Length: 1 Pages
Type: Essay

Although Bernie Madoff eventually received justice for his crimes, the case study reveals the structural problems inherent in the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). An independent financial fraud investigator,…

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5 Pages
Research Paper

Economics

Markopolos Investigation of Bernie Madoff

Words: 1423
Length: 5 Pages
Type: Research Paper

That immediately lead Markopolos to suspect that Madoff might not have ever even traded shares at all but was simply managing a tremendous Ponzi scheme, disguising the dispensation…

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2 Pages
Essay

Literature

Madoff S Ponzi Scheme Lessons to Be Learned

Words: 708
Length: 2 Pages
Type: Essay

Madoff and the Ethics of Business The author's viewpoint is objective and factual: it relates the episode in history regarding Bernie Madoff's "ponzi scheme" and shows how he was able…

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3 Pages

Law - Constitutional Law

Madoff S Ponzi Scheme and How it Could Have Been Prevented

Words: 951
Length: 3 Pages
Type:

Business Ethics - Contemporary Case 2: Madoff's Investment Firm The investment Ponzi scheme of Bernie Madoff and his hedge fund for wealthy clients was a major violation of ethics by…

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4 Pages
Essay

Accounting - Corporate Finance

The Greatest Ponzi Scheme

Words: 1237
Length: 4 Pages
Type: Essay

Madoff Securities case occurred because of fraudulent investment schemes due to lack of regulation as well as insufficient oversight of specific financial intermediaries along with dismissal of opportunistic behavior.…

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5 Pages
Research Paper

Economics

International Business the Aftermath of

Words: 1509
Length: 5 Pages
Type: Research Paper

Over the course of time, assertive laws are evolving which are supposed to deal with any issues quickly. This means that all financial firms will face higher costs…

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3 Pages
Essay

Business

Ethical Behavior of a Person or a

Words: 1086
Length: 3 Pages
Type: Essay

Ethical behavior of a person or a corporation greatly affects the stakeholders with which that person is involved. Often, people and companies take serious consideration when it comes to…

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6 Pages
Research Paper

Literature

Paranoia and Thomas Pynchon Bleeding Edge

Words: 1740
Length: 6 Pages
Type: Research Paper

Thomas Pynchon, Bleeding Edge One hallmark of postmodern literature is a willingness to mingle high and low registers, and to subvert popular and recognizable genres of literature with material that…

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18 Pages
Research Proposal

Economics

Hedge Fund Regulation the Purpose

Words: 4816
Length: 18 Pages
Type: Research Proposal

In the first-round survey, a majority of investors cited diversification as their main objective in allocating to hedge funds. Among the second-round interviewees who were planning to increase…

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5 Pages
Essay

Economics

Economic Crash Can Be Viewed From a

Words: 1487
Length: 5 Pages
Type: Essay

Economic crash can be viewed from a number of perspectives ranging from causes and effects to the 2008 Crash's resemblance to the Crash of 1929, which began the Great…

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5 Pages
Essay

Business

Christianity and Business

Words: 1680
Length: 5 Pages
Type: Essay

Your Name INDS 400-001 August 06, 2014 Business and Religion IPS Integration Essay Cognate/Career Synthesis Paper: Incorporating a Christian orldview MLA Presented in Partial Fulfillment EDU 400: Capstone Your Name John Doe EDU 400-001 06 August 2014 Business and Religion Synthesis: Incorporating a…

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2 Pages
Essay

Economics

Financial Practice

Words: 677
Length: 2 Pages
Type: Essay

working on financial practice problems can help students to apply key concepts and principles. Understanding various financial practice problems will help all students to ensure that they have a…

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