First Thread Discussion:
Bernard Madoff’s “Ponzi Scheme” was deemed the biggest fraud in financial history. A Ponzi scheme is usually run by one investor who uses money from new investors to pay off promised returns to old ones. Using just a 5,000 dollar investment, Madoff opened his investment firm, Bernard. L. Madoff investment securities LLC. Madoff’s had tons of investor invest their hard earned money, promising them a quick turnaround (return). Madoff has said to have defrauded his clients of a total sum of $65 Billion. Madoff flew under the radar for a really long time and remained undetected because of his reputation. The people investing with him truly believed that he was trustworthy. In 2008 Madoff’s scheme was finally exposed, because his clients began to get suspicious and were requesting a total of 7 billion in return. Madoff did not have the amount being requested by his clients. He was charged with 11 counts of fraud, money laundering, perjury and theft. Later he was sentenced to a 150 years in prison. Even though Madoff has been sent to prison I don’t believe justice has been served, Madoff scammed tons of people out of their hard earned money. It would’ve been nice if they could’ve received at least some of their money back. White collar crimes should be prosecuted just as aggressively as common crimes if not more, these crimes usually targets people’s livelihoods, they are committed with the intent to do harm. It may not be physical harm but the victims of these schemes are definitely being harmed psychologically.
Second Thread Discussion:
Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme is considered to be the highest profiled scam in the history of the financial industry. Bernie Madoff began his career as a penny stock trader and served as Chairman of NASDAQ for three consecutive terms. During this time, he built relationships influential businessmen with a master plan in mind. He and his wife started the investment securities firm in the 1980’s when he then recruited investors. Madoff had a very good repour with very wealthy people, and so his cunning scam began to fall into place. In a Ponzi scheme the clients are promised large profits in a short period of time, with little to no risk at all. As in any fraudulent scam of this sort, investors recruit new investors in order to get paid. However, in Madoff’s scheme he assured his investors a 50% profit in a 90-day period and they could then pull all of their profits if desired. Because he targeted an elite group of people, they were not so concerned with the immediate return of their money. Madoff encouraged them to stay in and earn more money rather than reclaim their profits. In order to be successful at such an elaborate scheme the initiator must be extremely calculating, cunning, but most of all trusted. Bernie Madoff built the name of “genius” for himself in the financial industry. It was due to Madoff’s excellent reputation that his clients were confident their money was safe. Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme went on for over 20 years defrauding his clients of over 65 billion dollars. Once the cash flow began to slow down, the elaborate scam began to fall apart. In 2008 his investors were demanding a payout of 7 billion dollars of which Madoff could not deliver. He was then turned in by his own sons, one of which committed suicide as a result of this scam. Madoff was sentenced to 120 years in prison which seems fair to me. He ruined many lives with this deceitful scam that was extremely strategic and went on for such a long period of time.
Respond to these two threaded discussion. Each threaded discussions in a paragraph. Please state either you agree or disagree and please support your answer in detail in a brief explanation. It could be opinion explanation and you can support iy from internet. And if you need to to put sources. Please do so. Give me access to the sources please so I don’t fail the assignment. Please write in basic English as I am an international students as my English is my third language.