Abstract

In this research we try to discover the insight of “Bernard Madoff” in a holistic perspective. The key heart of the study is on “Bernard Madoff” and his relation with “Ponzi Scheme”. The research also examines various characteristics of “Bernard Madoff” and tries to measure the effect of the scam he made. Lastly the research illustrates a variety of factors which were responsible for the “Ponzi Scam” and tries to describe the overall effect of it.

Table of Contents

Introduction3

Discussion and Analysis3

Conclusion7

Bernard Madoff

Introduction

Bernard Lawrence Madoff, better known just as Bernard Madoff, was born in New York, April 29, 1938. Technically, his work would have been better, that of a stockbroker, as well as an investor and financier, but his name is linked to the biggest scam in world history. It is accused of one of the biggest financial fraud ever, arrested on 11 December 2008 by U.S. federal agents on charges of defrauding its customers for the total of about $ 50 billion (Kirchner, pp.52).

On December 12, 2008, he was arrested and indicted by the FBI to have conducted a scam such as “Ponzi scheme, "which could cover 65 billion U.S. dollars. He was sentenced June 29, 2009 to 150 years in prison, the maximum provided by law. If the amounts involved were confirmed, it would be the highest loss to date due to fraud or error of assessment of a market operator, an employee or owner of a financial institution. Bernard L. Madoff is a self-taught entrepreneur; he abandoned his studies in law and began his career as a lifeguard on the beaches of Long Island. In the year 1960 at the age of 22, Madoff started his own investment company with 5 000 USD.

Discussion and Analysis

Bernard Madoff is clearly of Jewish origin; he grew up in a modest family in New York. His father, Ralph was a plumber before becoming a stockbroker. While his mother Sylvia was a housewife. His parents married in 1932, when the Great Depression was almost at its peak. Ralph and Sylvia started a company; the company was called Gibraltar Securities, whose address is the same as the Madoff's home in Queens, had to shut down due to some deficiencies in meeting the payment of taxes (Strober, pp. 89).

Madoff attended the Far Rockaway High School in 1956 and the University of Alabama for a year. He became a member of the fraternity Sigma Tau Alpha Mu and obtained a degree in political science from the Hofstra College in 1960. The following year he began studying at the Brooklyn Law School which he later gave up. In 1956, after graduating Mardoff decided to enroll at the University of Alabama where he studied for only a year and transferred to Hofstra University. In the year 1959, he married his long time girlfriend Ruth who at that time was studying in Queens College. Both Ruth and Mardoff, had an interest in finance; Ruth got a job in the stock market in Manhattan after the completion of her studies. On the ...