Bernard Madoff Essay

Submitted By Tristalynn14
Words: 1697
Pages: 7

Bernard Madoff He was born on April 29, 1938, in Queens, New York and attended the University of Alabama, where he stayed for a year before transferring to the University of Hofstra. In 1959, he married high school sweetheart Ruth, who was attending Queens College with a focus on finance. He then later opened his own business, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, LLC, where is father-in-law provided quite an extensive list of contacts of investors. "Madoff Investment Securities grew famous for its reliable annual returns of 10 percent or more and, by the 1980s, his firm handled up to 5 percent of the trading on the New York Stock Exchange Family Business." (Bernard Madoff. (2013). The Biography Channel) Bernie is considered the mastermind behind the world's biggest Ponzi scheme in history, of which he shows very little remorse. His financial background with his parents and schooling contributed to him being very influential and powerful in the world of finance. Throughout his years of investing, he managed to get investors to trust him completely, therefore he had approximately $170 billion that had moved through his office. Bernie prospered because of his entrusted investors and his financial background. The extent of his fraud is still unknown even after all these years. After his arrest he went as far as to admit that part of his office was an very elaborate Ponzi scheme and is now convicted, serving a 150 year sentence as of June 29th, 2009 at the age of 71.

DR HOTSPOT Illness. Poverty. What do you think about when you read or hear those words? One word that links the two of these words together is healthcare. In our day and age it can be expensive, lack of quality and hospitals are beginning to require patients to have health insurance. Dr. Jeffrey Brenner, a local physician in Camden, New Jersey which is a city of 79,000 people and one of the poorest cities in the country. "It's had three of its last six mayors indicted and convicted of corruption. It's just recently laid off half its police department. [It's an] incredibly challenged place. It's been taken over by state government -- the city government, school district, police department -- in various stages, at various points. So it's a very challenged small city." (WGBH Educational Foundation, July 26th, 2011). After seeing the poor treatment of patients and putting all the data together he decided something needed to be done about this. He brought together counselors, doctors and CNA's, and many others to help others in great need in this poor city. "We thought we could change that by bringing care to them. We've lost the art of the home visit. There's something very powerful about going into someone's home, building a relationship, sitting down with them, getting to know them, getting to know their family members. And there's something very empowering to patients when you come to them. It can be frightening to be in a doctor's office, and it can be frightening to have a doctor in a white coat walk into the room. It can be alienating to patients. And it sends a really powerful message of how much you care about them when you come to their house. And you also realize the circumstances they're living in." (WGBH Educational Foundation, July 26th, 2011) There is a very fine line in what is ethical and what is not in this situation. I see no ethical problem with this personally, but looking at it from someone else's point of view, such as a CEO of a hospital. They may view it as that this program that Dr. Brenner has set up is making them lose money due to the fact that they are keeping people out of the ER where the majority of costs come from. But at the same time as the great nation that we are, is it not a part of our responsibility to take care of our sick, poor and poverty sicken? That the people that are well off to help others and to have humanity and compassion towards others? If hospitals were to view it as this instead of where they can make