Bernie Madoff Case Summary

The Bernie Madoff scheme is riddled with ethical dilemmas throughout. While Madoff was highly successful and established businessperson tracing back to 1960 when he began trading in counter stocks which were not listed on the New York Stock Exchange (BOOK). It slowly transformed to a grey area as Madoff’s largest clients began request and expecting greater returns. It appears that this was the first ethical dilemma that Madoff was faced with that began the downward spiral that result in the fraud of the century.
As the first predicament arose, Madoff could have pushed back to his clients and admitted to the inability to produce greater returns, however instead, he decided to make promise that he could not financially keep. This began the Ponzi scheme where he borrowed money from one investor to show or pay high returns for another. The initiation of the scheme was highly unethically and it is certain that Madoff knew at the time. Nonetheless, Madoff believed that the structure was only temporary and he would be able to produce profits in another means to offset this fraudulently transaction.
The first issues that should or provoked an ethical thought of the savvy investors was the high amount of return offered by Madoff. This should have alarmed the individuals to question rather this types of returns could have be realized ethically. Furthermore, Madoff provided quarterly statements to these investors that provided little detail of how the gains were attained. Since the returns met the high return expectations and was in there favor, no one decided to question the lack of