Madoff's Ponzi Scheme

The name Bernard Madoff was a legendary name on Wall Street until he was arrested December 12, 2008 for pulling off a multibillion-dollar fraud scheme. His scheme is most likely the largest scandal in Wall Street's history. His actions are considered and related to history's Ponzi Scheme. The Ponzi scheme is named after the man Charles Ponzi who managed other's money promising a 50% profit within 45 days. However, in reality Ponzi only took the money the new investors invested in him and gave it to the old investors who wished to withdraw some money. As long as old investors did not withdraw too much at a time, the plan would work well. As for Madoff, he began to run out of new investors who would have "payed" off the old investors. Thus, he ran out of money to pay for the "profit" he promised to the investors. Overall, the vast amount of companies that had trusted Madoff to manage their money and had not withdrawn their money, ended up losing million/billions of dollars. Not only did the companies that invested in Madoff suffer, the companies/people that invested in those companies ultimately suffered as well.

Madoff's actions undoubtfully affected Canadians as well. As Madoff is a well-known money manager, there must be Canadians who had trusted him as well. Madoff's actions had caused companies to lose as much as 50 billion dollars, which is completely unacceptable. It is in fact fearful that a 70-year-old man is able to pull off such a scheme without being caught before resulting in such damage. There must be a firmer and enforced force that monitor such people's actions to avoid future misfortunes.





http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/bernard_l_madoff/index.html?scp=1-spot&sq=madoff&st=cse

Man confesses to slaying 12-year-old girlfriend's family

Jeremy Steinke, a 25-year-old man living in Calgary was accused of slaying his 12-year-old girlfriend's family as he claimed, was due to the reason of being on drugs. The girl is only known as J.R. As he recounted, when he origninally met J.R, he assumed she was 16, not 12. "At the time I really didn't think too much about it,” Steinke said, deciding that when she would be 18, he would be 29 and they planned to get married. The devastating murder occured on a night when Steinke was on booze, marijuana, cocaine and ecstasy as he went to the girl's house. He claimed J.R had wanted to sneak out from her house as usual with him. Steike crawled through the basement window and saw J.R's mother who screamed. Panick took the hold of Steike and he whipped out his knife, stabbing the mother 12 times. Not long after, the father arrived with a screwdriver and a fight broke out. Steike was again forced to take out his knife. Eventually, both parents lay dead with their son, who was slashed to death by his own sister, J.R.

The murder of the three lives must be blamed on the fact that there is still a vast amount of child abuse in the society. Jeremy Steinke was abused and excluded from the society as even at a small age, his parents had divorced and his mother constantly choosing different husbands and boyfriends; some who had abused him. Not only did Jeremy suffer at home, he faced problems alone as he was bullied and eventually took drugs since he wanted to be 'cool.' Overall, the amount of child abuse that is present within today society is horrific. Jeremy Steinke's murder shows everyone the result of those who endure abuse for an extended period of time. Thus, the law of child abuse must be enforced and a higher punishment placed for offenders of this crime.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081201.wsteinke1201/BNStory/National/home