Madoff with the Money is a detailed description of Bernard L. Madoff (and BLN Investments) and how they were able to pull of histories largest Ponzi scheme. The aim of this book was to gain a better understanding of Madoff’s early life and the method behind his madness. The book starts out with Bernie in high school, and then gradually works its way into the business (first his sprinkler business, then his time on Wall Street), then to the point where the FBI shows up at his doorstep. The thesis of this book was to attempt to answer all the questions we as readers had about Bernie Madoff. Jerry Oppenheimer was very determined to prove that Madoff’s past has nothing to do with his outcome as a person now; a reader could say his bias was with us as a reader, definitely not taking Madoff’s side. Oppenheimer’s goal with this book was to paint a better understanding of Madoff’s life. If someone were to know nothing about Bernie Madoff, or if someone wanted to learn more about him, this book is suited for both audiences and is a great read. Oppenheimer lays out the book such that it gives the reader a general overview in the epigraph, then leads into Madoff’s early years as a student and early business man, then leads into his later years as a professional business man and his successes. This book was extremely well written. Personally I have trouble understanding books that are too wordy or have confusing story lines, but this one was very easy to follow with a very straight forward plot. I quite enjoyed little bits of humour he added in to take away from all the seriousness of the book. Some may consider that a con, but I think it was quite enjoyable. An example of this humour would be “... one of several yachts, all named Bull,... did not represent the high flying bull market as most thought, but rather was an ironic insider joke for the bullshit he was throwing at those he was bilking.” I personally enjoyed the book so much that I could not find anything I didn’t enjoy about it. This book has had an extremely high rating in its category, and it deserves its title. Oppenheimer has spent many years researching and studying Madoff and it sure shows off.
The book Madoff With the Money by Jerry Oppenheimer, is a chronological series of events about the life of Bernie Madoff. In December 2008 Bernie Madoff was arrested for the massive ponzi scheme that scammed hundreds of people from the rich and famous to your average person out of their life savings. The book goes through the life of Madoff, not simply pertaining to his later days explaining the largest fraud in history, but details his life from his childhood to his early employment right up to his arrest and early confinement. The book surmises that Madoff is a product of his upbringing, meaning that all of the things that happened throughout his life lead him to scramming hundreds of people. I found this book to be an excellent source of data on everything that has happened in Madoff’s life. The book details his childhood in Queens, his college education at Hofstra College, his marriage to Ruth and his investment company on Wall Street. The author interviews many people whose lives have intersected with Madoff over his lifetime. However, I have found it to be slightly biased towards him as one would expect. There are numerous times in the book where it is details facts that would be other wise irrelevant. This author does this to paint him in an even worse light. Even though there is a slight bias on the author’s part, the main intention of the book was very apparent. To show the full life of Bernie Madoff, explaining the man behind the headlines and how he became the man we hear about in the news. A strength that I found in this book are the stories given by his family members and friends which were very interesting. This did an excellent job of adding depth to the book and I found that it helped to show the true Bernie Madoff exactly how he was. Another strength I found in this book was the great deal of detail that this book went into. It seemed like there was little left out as it talked about every aspect of his life imaginable. The main weakness I found in this book was that it oversimplified, and generalized his investment scam. For example, the actual investment scam and cover up that allowed Madoff to rob hundreds of people was greatly generalized. The book did not discuss in detail how he actually did it and got away with it for so long. Another main weakness of his book was even though the author interviewed many of Madoff’s friends and family members, the author failed to interview Madoff himself. The reader did not hear Madoff’s side of the story or how he views the events that occurred. Overall I found this book an interesting read. However, if you are looking for a book to explain the financial scam this is not the book. An interesting follow up would be an article showing how his wife Ruth is living in current times with her husband incarcerated for the remainder of his life.
Madoff with the Money is a detailed description of Bernard L. Madoff (and BLN Investments) and how they were able to pull of histories largest Ponzi scheme. The aim of this book was to gain a better understanding of Madoff’s early life and the method behind his madness. The book starts out with Bernie in high school, and then gradually works its way into the business (first his sprinkler business, then his time on Wall Street), then to the point where the FBI shows up at his doorstep. The thesis of this book was to attempt to answer all the questions we as readers had about Bernie Madoff. Jerry Oppenheimer was very determined to prove that Madoff’s past has nothing to do with his outcome as a person now; a reader could say his bias was with us as a reader, definitely not taking Madoff’s side. Oppenheimer’s goal with this book was to paint a better understanding of Madoff’s life. If someone were to know nothing about Bernie Madoff, or if someone wanted to learn more about him, this book is suited for both audiences and is a great read. Oppenheimer lays out the book such that it gives the reader a general overview in the epigraph, then leads into Madoff’s early years as a student and early business man, then leads into his later years as a professional business man and his successes. This book was extremely well written. Personally I have trouble understanding books that are too wordy or have confusing story lines, but this one was very easy to follow with a very straight forward plot. I quite enjoyed little bits of humour he added in to take away from all the seriousness of the book. Some may consider that a con, but I think it was quite enjoyable. An example of this humour would be “... one of several yachts, all named Bull,... did not represent the high flying bull market as most thought, but rather was an ironic insider joke for the bullshit he was throwing at those he was bilking.” I personally enjoyed the book so much that I could not find anything I didn’t enjoy about it. This book has had an extremely high rating in its category, and it deserves its title. Oppenheimer has spent many years researching and studying Madoff and it sure shows off.
ReplyDeleteThe book Madoff With the Money by Jerry Oppenheimer, is a chronological series of events about the life of Bernie Madoff. In December 2008 Bernie Madoff was arrested for the massive ponzi scheme that scammed hundreds of people from the rich and famous to your average person out of their life savings. The book goes through the life of Madoff, not simply pertaining to his later days explaining the largest fraud in history, but details his life from his childhood to his early employment right up to his arrest and early confinement. The book surmises that Madoff is a product of his upbringing, meaning that all of the things that happened throughout his life lead him to scramming hundreds of people.
ReplyDeleteI found this book to be an excellent source of data on everything that has happened in Madoff’s life. The book details his childhood in Queens, his college education at Hofstra College, his marriage to Ruth and his investment company on Wall Street. The author interviews many people whose lives have intersected with Madoff over his lifetime. However, I have found it to be slightly biased towards him as one would expect. There are numerous times in the book where it is details facts that would be other wise irrelevant. This author does this to paint him in an even worse light. Even though there is a slight bias on the author’s part, the main intention of the book was very apparent. To show the full life of Bernie Madoff, explaining the man behind the headlines and how he became the man we hear about in the news.
A strength that I found in this book are the stories given by his family members and friends which were very interesting. This did an excellent job of adding depth to the book and I found that it helped to show the true Bernie Madoff exactly how he was. Another strength I found in this book was the great deal of detail that this book went into. It seemed like there was little left out as it talked about every aspect of his life imaginable.
The main weakness I found in this book was that it oversimplified, and generalized his investment scam. For example, the actual investment scam and cover up that allowed Madoff to rob hundreds of people was greatly generalized. The book did not discuss in detail how he actually did it and got away with it for so long. Another main weakness of his book was even though the author interviewed many of Madoff’s friends and family members, the author failed to interview Madoff himself. The reader did not hear Madoff’s side of the story or how he views the events that occurred.
Overall I found this book an interesting read. However, if you are looking for a book to explain the financial scam this is not the book. An interesting follow up would be an article showing how his wife Ruth is living in current times with her husband incarcerated for the remainder of his life.