Bernie Madoff and Enron

The Bernie Madoff and ENRON Scandals

Heather Smith

BUS 340

Hilary Mueller

November 13, 2011

The Bernie Madoff and ENRON Scandals

If you are on Google and want to look up America’s top financial scandal you might read about someone named Bernie Madoff who in 2008 made off with around $65 billion, and if you look up America’s top Buiness scandals you might read about a company called ENRON who started in the 1990’s and making off with over $70 billion. These two scandals have made headlines over and over again. They are both different in ways but also so similar in ways for both disregarded the ethics and responsibility it had as a company or corporation to the public.

Bernie Madoff was a renowned Wall Street trader who took a bad turn and became a well known scandal. His main objective was to defraud his clients and he did so without anyone knowing for several years. December 2008 is when he finally got caught and it was estimated that he stole around $65 billion from his clients. How did his scandal work? “He eventually accepts billions of dollars from individual investors, charitable organizations, pension funds, hedge funds, and others. He claims that his sophisticated trading and hedging strategy will produce investment gains in all market conditions, though securities regulators later say he never traded any shares for client accounts” (Nasaw, 2011). He was showing to be ethical and responsible to his clients, but he had other things in mind. He didn’t care if he lied to his clients or stole their hard earned cash as long as he and he alone profited from his scam. After he was questioned by the FBI he clearly stated, “there is no innocent explanation” (The Telegraph, 2009). There was no innocent explanation because he knew what he did was ethically and morally wrong and he was not being a responsible trader, person, or investor. It is sad that so many people trusted him because he showed to be a very successful trader...