Jack and ____ made persuasive arguments during the departmen…

Questions

Jаck аnd ____ mаde persuasive arguments during the department meeting.

HISTORY: Rоbber Bаrоns Then аnd Nоw Reаd the following biography from a university course book. Bernard Madoff: A 21st-century Robber Baron (1) Bernard (Bernie) Madoff perpetrated the largest financial fraud in US history. His life followed a remarkable trajectory: he rose from humble circumstances and ascended to the summit of American society by building a financial empire. In 2008, after almost 50 years as chairman of the powerful investment firm he founded, the illegitimacy of his operations was revealed. Madoff’s empire came crashing down. Billions of dollars were lost, tens of thousands of investors were affected, and there were dire consequences for the global economy.   Early Life(2) Born in 1938 in Queens, New York, Madoff came from a modest background. His mother was a homemaker, and his father worked for many years as a plumber; his grandparents were poor immigrants from Eastern Europe and Austria. Madoff’s parents were married at the height of the Great Depression and were still struggling financially when Madoff was born. During his teens, his parents began to work as stockbrokers, but Madoff showed no interest in finance at the time. He cared more about swimming competitions and working as a lifeguard. After high school, he enrolled at the University of Alabama but later transferred to Hofstra University in New York, where he studied political science.   Madoff’s Rise(3) In 1960, Madoff graduated from Hofstra and founded the securities firm that made him famous. He used $5,000 saved from part-time jobs and established Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, which may or may not have been legitimate in its early days. The firm promised high returns on investments and by the 1970s was attracting clients from New York’s most elite social circles. Eventually, the firm’s clients included director Steven Spielberg, actor Kevin Bacon, and the owner of the New York Mets baseball team. By the 1980s, the firm handled up to 5% of the trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Madoff was one of the first investors to see the value of computerized trading, which helped him deliver unusually high returns to his clients. He came to be a key player on Wall Street, and as his company expanded, he grew ever more respected in rich and powerful circles. The Scam(4) For many years no one knew it, but Madoff’s firm was being run as an elaborate Ponzi scheme. This type of illegitimate investment operation takes its name from Charles Ponzi, a 1920s con man. In a Ponzi scheme, the operator—in this case, Madof —attracts investors with the lure of huge profits. However, the operator avoids giving specific details about where the money will come from. The operator pays his initial investors by recruiting new investors, then pays those new investors with money from the next set of investors, and so on. To survive, the company must have a constant influx of money; when new investors stop paying in, the company collapses. Because no real profit exists, Ponzi schemes also collapse if many investors want to withdraw their money at the same time. Suspicion(5) In 1999, the shrewd financial analyst Harry Markopolos began to suspect that Madoff was not running a legitimate business. For almost ten years, Markopolos tried to convince government regulators, the financial industry, and the media that Madoff was a fraud. No one would listen. Then, with the dawn of the financial crisis of 2008, investors began asking to withdraw their money from Madoff’s fund. Madoff could no longer sustain his business and confided the truth to his two sons, who were both senior employees. Madoff’s sons reported him to the authorities, and Madoff was arrested. Harry Markopolos had been right all along. The Consequences(6) After a lengthy investigation and a trial, Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison. Madoff’s brother Peter was also convicted; other insiders, such as the firm’s chief financial officer, accountant, and director of operations, are also serving jail sentences. In 2010, Madoff’s older son, Mark, committed suicide, although three years later, a London court found that neither Mark nor his younger brother, Andrew, had participated in the scam. More than 50,000 people have claimed to be among Madoff’s victims, and investors lost an estimated $17.5 billion. The scandal prompted widespread reform in financial regulation in the hopes that future frauds will not go undetected. Question 1 Madoff enjoyed many years of success before his illegal operations were discovered.

    In the figure, the letter F best represents