The Enron And Enron 's Scams, The Ponzi Scheme Perpetrated By Bernard Madoff Essay

Bernie Madoff began his career as an investment broker in 1960, where he legally bought and sold over-the-counter stocks not listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). From the 1960’s through the 1990’s, Madoff’s success and business grew substantially, mainly from a closed circle of known investors and friends through word of mouth. In the 1990’s Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities traded up to 10 percent of the NASDAQ on any given day. With the success of the securities business, Madoff started an illegal money-management business, promising his investors consistent returns from 10-12 percent, unheard of returns at the time, which should have tipped off most investors that something was amiss.

The word “fraud” was magnified in the business world around the end of 2001 and the beginning of 2002. No one had seen anything like it. Enron, one of the country’s largest energy companies, went bankrupt and took down with it Arthur Andersen, one of the five largest audit and accounting firms in the world. Enron was followed by other accounting scandals such as WorldCom, Tyco, Freddie Mac, and HealthSouth, yet Enron will always be remembered as one of the worst corporate accounting scandals of all time. Enron’s collapse was brought upon by the greed of its corporate hierarchy and how it preyed upon its faithful stockholders and employees who invested so much of their time and money into the company. Enron seemed to portray that the goal of corporate America was to drive up stock prices and get to the peak of the financial mountain by any means necessary. The “Conspiracy of Fools” is a tale of power, crony capitalism, and company greed that lead Enron down the dark road of corporate America.

Bernie Madoff is attributable for having one of the biggest frauds in history; he was responsible for losing billions of dollars of investors’ money for over twenty years. Known as one of the fathers of the NASDAQ, he gained credibility early and was able to prey on different affluent groups to gain billions of dollars for ‘trading’ investments. Markopolos the whistleblower of the Madoff case saw this scheme from the beginning and attempted to warn the SEC, which proved to be unsuccessful.

In examining the standards of ethics, or lack thereof, in cases of corporate fraud there are key questions to consider. These questions relate to ethics, the fraud triangle, and the legal ramifications incurred. It is important to examine the elements related to these key questions, in order to gain an understanding of the impacts fraud has upon all parties involved. This handbook provides information to gain an understanding of what ethical violations are at play and the impacts upon all involved parties resulting from those violations. Further provided is information regarding ethical issues when an awareness of the fraud is known, and what the reactions should be by the

“Mr. Madoff 's crimes were extraordinarily evil." "The breach of trust was massive. “I simply do not get the sense that Mr. Madoff has done all that he could or told all that he knows. “These are all quotes given by the US district attorney Denny Chin that give a mere glimpse into the horrible impact that Bernie Madoff has had on 21st century American society. Madoff cheated investors worldwide in the biggest Ponzi scheme in American history stealing over sixty five billion dollars from his clients .His enormous ponzi scheme was essentially evil genius and because of this incredible con Madoff has become the face of fraud in the 21st century and someone who exemplifies the dark side of wall street. This is shown through the incredible

The thing I liked most about this documentary was the fact that it focused on the guys at the top, the self-proclaimed "smartest men in the room", the so-called geniuses who knew the energy business so much better than the rest of the industry. And what a piece of work these men were.

Enron’s ride is quite a phenomenon: from a regional gas pipeline trader to the largest energy trader in the world, and then back down the hill into bankruptcy and disgrace. As a matter of fact, it took Enron 16 years to go from about $10 billion of assets to $65 billion of assets, and 24 days to go bankruptcy. Enron is also one of the most celebrated business ethics cases in the century. There are so many things that went wrong within the organization, from all personal (prescriptive and psychological approaches), managerial (group norms, reward system, etc.), and organizational (world-class culture) perspectives. This paper will focus on the business ethics issues at Enron that were raised from the documentation Enron: The Smartest Guys

A Ponzi scheme of this size and magnitude probably won’t happen again. The Ponzi has been around since the beginning of time. It has been documented to be in existence since 1920. The Security Exchange Commission (SEC) has put several detectors in for the Ponzi scheme. This should be labeled a white-collar crime but should be punished as a blue-collar crime. The only to ensure that this does not happen again is to get rid of all the thieves in the world. That will be difficult task.

Bernard Madoff was an investment advisor and former chairman of NASDAQ and he was most famous for perpetrating the largest Ponzi Scheme in history. In 1960, Bernie founded Madoff Investment Securities, LLC, and his firm was one of the first to use computer technology to trade. They specialized in over the counter stocks. He grew his company by networking and got his family involved in running the company. His first clients were people in his neighborhood, and people who went to his same church.

In this essay I will be answering the question; Are businesses that act unethically destined for failure? It’s no secret that many, if not the majority, of the world’s most famous companies have been accused of acting in an unethical manner; but the unasked question is why do so many get away with acting unethically. The definition of the ethics is “the study of practices and policies in business, to determine which are ethically defensible and which are not” (Jennifer Jackson 1996 page one)

Enron’s ride is quite a phenomenon: from a regional gas pipeline trader to the largest energy trader in the world, and then back down the hill into bankruptcy and disgrace. As a matter of fact, it took Enron 16 years to go from about $10 billion of assets to $65 billion of assets, and 24 days to go bankruptcy. Enron is also one of the most celebrated business ethics cases in the century. There are so many things that went wrong within the organization, from all personal (prescriptive and psychological approaches), managerial (group norms, reward system, etc.), and organizational (world-class culture) perspectives. This paper will focus on the business ethics issues at Enron that were raised from the documentation Enron: The Smartest Guys

In essence, the majority of the people who fall victims to cases of fraud are the successful and sophisticated as well as educated individuals (Biegelman, 2013). The persons are easily taken advantage of due to their status in society. Most of them will most likely not talk about a case of fraud if they fall, victims, as they will not want to be viewed as anything other than triumphant. This fact that the thriving people in society want to remain and be seen as successful is what Madoff used in convincing investors to sponsor his Ponzi scheme. Also, Madoff is most likely to have relied on investor’s psychology such as blindness of the sponsors (Carlson, 2015). The majority of the investors must have been reading the newspapers rather than following

As Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind portray in The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron, there was a chain-reaction of events and a hole that dug deeper with time in the life-span of, at one time the world's 7th largest corporation, Enron. The events were formulated by an equation with many factors: arbitrary accounting practices, Wall Street's evolving nature and Enron's lack of successful business plans combined with, what Jeff Skilling, CEO of Enron, believed was the most natural of human characteristics, greed. This formula resulted in fraud, deceit, and ultimately the rise and fall of Enron.

This paper introduces Bernard L. Madoff a fraudster who orchestrated a multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme. The paper discusses elements that make up a Ponzi scheme and explains what a Ponzi scheme is. The paper goes on to introduce some of the victim’s and examines some reasons why someone might fall victim to a Ponzi scheme. The paper describes the three elements making up the fraud triangle and how they relate to the fraud and the fraudster. This paper covers Bernard Madoff’s background and history and how he committed the fraud analyzing the fraud triangle. The paper describes ways to correct the issue, accounting principles violated, and recommendations for a fix. Finally, the paper looks at internal and external controls violated and ends with a conclusion.

1.     Ken Lay served as CEO and chairman and Jeffrey Skilling also served as CEO. They both were responsible for planning, organizing, controlling and leading the company. They set goals for the company and organized how they would be achieved. Kay’s role was as the figurehead and the leader. He also served as the spokesperson for the company and made many of the decision on the future of the company. As CEO’s they both possessed effective communication skills, where decisive, which was evidenced by their vision for the company and refusal to admit wrong even at the end, and visionary. Throughout Lay’s tenor the company continued to grow and prosper at a fast