Well, ol’ Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison for scamming people out of untold billions. No one knows how much money was involved, not even him.Who’s fault was it? Was it the greed of those who invested with him, hoping to turn a quick buck? According to many witnesses, many of these “investors” begged Madoff to take their money, even after he refused to let them invest at first. Should he have totally refused these people? Now they had friends that had invested and seemingly, made a good profit by doing so. To refuse them, while accepting their friends money would have, maybe, brought his Ponzi scheme down a little sooner than what it was. I very seriously doubt that Madoff ever dreamed this scheme would grow so big…but it did. Once anyone starts a scheme like this, it would be extremely hard to stop it.
The fuel that keeps something like this growing and going, is the basic greed of individuals. A million dollars isn’t enough for them and they want MORE money. Five million isn’t enough because they want ten million. Nothing wrong with that concept, because after all, this is America…the land of free enterprise, honey and mom’s apple pie!
Did any of these investors, after watching their portfolio and financial grow, take any money out, “cash” any of their investments in? Or did all of them, just tell Bernie to “let it ride”? Seems to me that a logical investor might want to reclaim his original investment at some point in time, and let Bernie keep “investing” his so-called “profit”. However, we are talking about the greed of these investors and, evidently, not many if any, of them thought logically.
Greed is what fuels the American economy. Does anyone think that Bill Gates did not desire to make tons of money? Do you not think that Donald Trump wants as much money as he can? Everyone is greedy…from the used car salesman and the vacuum cleaner salesman to the CEO of a major corporation who strives for that huge “bonus”. Greed is what fuel the many lotteries across this country. No matter how many laws are passed, no government has been able to eradicate the greed of humans. No religions have eradicted it. Bernie Madoff was a highly regarded member of Judaism, yet he ripped his fellow Jews off as much as he ripped off Christians. Why? because they were greedy Jews and greedy Christians, and a greedy Jew took them all for a ride. So much for the “Do unto others….” thing. Pastors will move from church to church because of the renumeration and perks that will be “offerered” to him or her. They don’t do what they do for free, people. And those who take other peoples money to “invest” do not do it for free either.
At the age of 71, Madoff will end up dying in prison. Some may think that it was the proper sentence and others not. In a different era, he would have been hanged for his misdeeds. What fueled Madoff and what fueled his investors was the same thing…Greed. Prison will no doubt cure Madoff of his greed, however, even though the greedy investor’s lost money, their greed won’t be cured.
