Are Moral Values Important?

To many people, the Bible is the blueprint on how to live one’s life with moral values. I think that moral values are extremely important, in that a person can significantly destroy his life by one bad decision. You can rise to the top with an impeccable reputation, but one silly decision made in a moment of weakness can cause you to lose your reputation and career.

Consider Bernie Madoff. He was once an extremely wealthy “guru stock investor” who catered to the rich. He was one of the go-to guys if you were rich and wanted to invest your money.

But in reality, Bernie Madoff didn’t know squat about investing. He created the illusion that he was a great guru stock investor, so that the rich would hand over their money to him. And many did, making him a very rich man.

Bernie Madoff basically ran a Ponzi scheme. He took money from rich clients, and when one of the clients wanted to cash out of their imaginary stock portfolio, he would return that client’s money with the interest from the other investors’ money. This worked well until the Great Recession occurred.

During the Great Recession, the value of real estate and stocks plummeted. This caused a great panic among investors. Investors began selling off real estate and stocks in order to cut their losses.

Much to Bernie’s dismay, many of his clients wanted their money back all at the same time. Given this, Bernie realized that he could no longer pay the interest of a client’s investment with the money from the other investors. That’s when his Ponzi scheme began to collapse.

Bernie’s Ponzi scheme went public, causing him to go to prison, causing his wife to be the community outcast, and causing his oldest son to commit suicide. What a great tragedy. It didn’t have to be this way.