Bernard L. Madoff's Ponzi Scheme

1437 Words3 Pages

Global Financial Crisis The Global Financial Crisis was a global economic meltdown started by the American economy, the world economic power, due to many factors, bringing many other economies into it. However, some countries were unaffected. Global Financial Crisis The credit crunch, recession ghost towns, scammed investors, all various effects from the global financial crisis. As the credit crunch brought on a loss of confidence from U.S investors in their subprime mortgages, homeowners were forced to borrow from banks, stacking loan upon loan until there was too much money in the economy and the debts became unpayable. This costed homeowners their homes creating recession ghost towns across the U.S. However, investors were being …show more content…

Madoff used a technique called a Ponzi scheme, named after Charles Ponzi, where investors are baited into giving their savings by promising consistent high profits, which obviously doesn’t happen. Bernard L Madoff was caught on December 2008 was charged with 11 counts of fraud, money laundering, perjury and theft. He was conducting this scheme as the central operator but still managed to stay hidden for years. This was because he was an unlikely suspect of such a scheme, as he was an active member of the financial world. Madoff’s Ponzi scheme did allow him to get away with US $20 billion although he had a recorded theft of US $65 billion. This was because Ponzi schemes use the loans from new investors to pay (some) of the loans from old investors. Inefficient and doomed to fail, Madoff managed to do this, scam US $65 billion off U.S investors and thus, contributing to the global financial crisis. Effects of the GFC Certainly, the GFC affected many businesses and the global economy. It was at the zenith of the GFC that led to the collapse of the Lehman Brothers, marking the GFC’s effect down in …show more content…

From then on, the Lehman Brothers shares fell by 48%, and yet, even then the U.S government still chose to let the fall, and go bankrupt. This was opposite to the fact that they had a strong support to keep Bear Stearns alive, even though the Lehman Brothers was one of the most powerful players in the U.S economy at the time. Recession Ghost Towns Ghost towns created by the recession of the global financial crisis was due to the credit crunch and the unpayable loans from banks. Ghost towns were appearing due to the sheer number of U.S homeowners that couldn’t pay off their house loan, leading to the foreclosure of it. These foreclosures all across the U.S, resulting in the creation of ghost

Open Document