Bernard Madoff's 50 billion dollar "Ponzi Scheme" was and currently still holds the status of the greatest financial fraud in the history of our country. This statement is agreed with by Spero News when writer, Justin Rohrlich, says "...in the second week of December 2008. Charities were wiped out, the life savings of entire families were lost, and innocent lives were ruined in a tragedy that is a failure of morality, a failure of regulation, a failure of unbridled capitalism, and a failure of common sense." (Bernard Madoff: An American Tragedy). Bernie Madoff started his firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, in 1960 with $5,000. Madoff also served as the Chairman of the Board of the Sy Syms School of Business at Yeshiva University, as well as Treasurer of its Board of Trustees. His firm was one of the top five market makers on Wall Street, and his estimated net worth grew to between $200 and $300 million. He began to put aside his humble nature and began to become extremely rich, owning estates in Roslyn, N.Y. and Montauk, Long Island, and in addition a luxury apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side which took up the whole twelfth floor, worth more than 5 million dollars. He also owns mansions in Palm Beach and France and owns a 55-foot fishing boat. Madoff did not provide his clients online access to their accounts, most likely because they did not exist the way the client thought they did. To pull this off, he marketed his fund to the rich communities in New York, Florida, and even Europeans attending skiing competitions. brought down Bernie Madoff, were redemptions of $7 billion from investors that overwhelmed his ability to pay them from new funds. Because of him, tons of people lost just about everything including millions of dollars, or even whole retirement funds saved up one's entire life.
The fact that someone would do this and think it is okay really baffles me. Someone who has done nothing thinks that they can just steal all the money that people have saved up for years or maybe even their whole life really does deserve to go to hell. After reading Dante's Inferno, I think he would also agree. Putting into account all of the circles of hell, one can infer that Madoff could in fact fit in more than one section of a circle. In the 8th Circle, both Bolgia 5 and 7 fit Madoff well. Bolgia 5 consists of the Grafters or the extortionists, those who try to obtain money or something valuable by the abuse of one's office or authority. In other words, they used other people's weakness to their gain. This relates to Bernie Madoff because he used the wealthy people's ignorance of the situation for his own person gain. Bolgia 7 fits in perfectly with the crimes Madoff committed, seeing as the 7th section on circle 8 consists of the Thieves. Sense he is considered a theif due to his stealing of Billions of doallars from innocent people, I feel that this Bolgia is suitable for him. Although Dante would choose one Bolgia or the other to place Madoff into, I feel like he fits in both of them equally. Because Pistoia says "I am put down so low because it was i who stole the treasure from the Sacristy, for which others were blamed" (210) it shows that Dante thinks of stealing as stealing even if you lie about it. This is why I am led to beleive that maybe Bolgia 7 is a better fit for Madoff because he did in fact steal something, although he did use extortion, Pistoia lied and he is still in this section. If I had to pick which one Dante would chose for him I would have to say Bolgia 7.
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