The article I found called “Bernie Madoff and the cruel law of averages“, by Margaret Wente, describes the simple ethical issues we all face today. The controversy of being in business, is that many people think of profits over ethics.
Bernie Madoff tricked many of his victims into investing with him. Although it was too good to be true, many of his clients still gave him every penny they had. In one’s mind, being able to be “above average” is what motivates us. According to the theory of economics, everyone is trying their best to advance self-interests. Many times we disregard basic ethics like trust, when we’re too focused on maximizing profits. Sometimes not just companies do this, we ourselves might have done this but not to his extent. For example, many of us have part time jobs and most of the time we get commission, bonuses, and credit toward sales. The extra benefits we get may sometimes lead us into doing things putting the importance of “profit” first. I work at a retail store myself, and I must admit that there have been times where I told a customer an outfit looked great on him/her when it actually wasn’t that outstanding. I’m sure we’ve all done this at some point, especially when we really needed that last sale to make our budgets.
Bernie Madoff is selfish and his deception for financial gains affected many of his victims. “Trust” is an important factor in business, and it is an ethical issue we face today.
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