Personal Experience with Opportunism
ECON 490 Blog Post 9/22
Opportunism is an interesting topic especially when it is related to economics. Opportunities are available for people to take advantage of more often than not. It is a personal character that guides the decision-making process of being a good citizen or not. There are many stories I can think of about people not maintaining good character and not being a good citizen. I think one of the most notorious cases of opportunism is the Bernie Madoff investment scandal. He took advantage of thousands of people including high-profile celebrity clients to average Americans. He created a $50-$65 billion dollar loss for investors and stole about $20 million for himself. I believe that acting opportunistically always relates to the theory of "karma" or "what goes around comes around." Bernie Madoff may have been very rich at one point in his life, however, he was caught by the authorities and now only makes $40 a month in his 150-year prison sentence. He also ruined his family and their lives causing his sons to commit suicide, and now he is alone in prison without a family.
While holding my executive board position in my sorority, I was presented with many opportunities to take advantage of situations for my own benefit. As I held my position of Chief Marketing Officer, I knew I was elected to do a stand-up job. My goal was to be the best person to hold this position in recent years by implementing new strategies and projects. Since I was on the executive board, I had access to the funds of the entire sorority chapter. One of the main responsibilities of my position was to put on several philanthropic fundraisers throughout my year. To throw large and successful philanthropic fundraisers meant it was necessary for me to purchase goods and services. I had access to the sorority credit card and had no restrictions on what I could buy. I was in charge of what I believe I needed for the event and I did not need approval by any superior. If I wanted to go shopping with the card and purchase things for my own personal use, I could have. However, I believe that my values allowed me to act as a good citizen and not take advantage of this situation of having access to unlimited and unsupervised spending.
Another time I had the opportunity to take advantage of a situation was after I had thrown the philanthropic fundraiser. The fundraiser I was throwing was a ticket based event where my sorority sold tickets to get into the event. Each ticket was $5 or $7 and after a very successful ticket sale, I had collected about $6,000 dollars in ticket sales prior to the actual event. At the time, I was living in my sorority house and was extremely anxious to have such a large sum of money in my room. I was worried to be living in a house where about 200 people have access to without any type of surveillance in my room where so much money was being held. I had not acted opportunistically by not taking any of the cash from my room. The members of my sorority also did not act opportunistically since my room was not broken into and the cash for the philanthropy was not taken for personal benefit. I believe that myself and the others did not act to take advantage of the situation because of morals and knowing where the money was going. The money was going to be donated to a philanthropic organization and benefit others that are not as well off as themselves.
While holding my executive board position in my sorority, I was presented with many opportunities to take advantage of situations for my own benefit. As I held my position of Chief Marketing Officer, I knew I was elected to do a stand-up job. My goal was to be the best person to hold this position in recent years by implementing new strategies and projects. Since I was on the executive board, I had access to the funds of the entire sorority chapter. One of the main responsibilities of my position was to put on several philanthropic fundraisers throughout my year. To throw large and successful philanthropic fundraisers meant it was necessary for me to purchase goods and services. I had access to the sorority credit card and had no restrictions on what I could buy. I was in charge of what I believe I needed for the event and I did not need approval by any superior. If I wanted to go shopping with the card and purchase things for my own personal use, I could have. However, I believe that my values allowed me to act as a good citizen and not take advantage of this situation of having access to unlimited and unsupervised spending.
Another time I had the opportunity to take advantage of a situation was after I had thrown the philanthropic fundraiser. The fundraiser I was throwing was a ticket based event where my sorority sold tickets to get into the event. Each ticket was $5 or $7 and after a very successful ticket sale, I had collected about $6,000 dollars in ticket sales prior to the actual event. At the time, I was living in my sorority house and was extremely anxious to have such a large sum of money in my room. I was worried to be living in a house where about 200 people have access to without any type of surveillance in my room where so much money was being held. I had not acted opportunistically by not taking any of the cash from my room. The members of my sorority also did not act opportunistically since my room was not broken into and the cash for the philanthropy was not taken for personal benefit. I believe that myself and the others did not act to take advantage of the situation because of morals and knowing where the money was going. The money was going to be donated to a philanthropic organization and benefit others that are not as well off as themselves.
Regarding Madoff, several people have written that his investors should have been suspicious much earlier, because he always provided an above market return, like clockwork. The market doesn't work that way. There are ups and downs, even for very talented investors. So part of the issue is that the investors were too trusting. Some of them were very important business people. There is a lesson in these observations.
ReplyDeleteRegarding your more personal examples (and in the future please just do one example but more in depth) some basics for me would have helped. In either case was there a bank account where funds are kept? What about records and who had access to those? I would think those things would prevent opportunism by a single individual. Having a lot of cash laying around, perhaps necessary over a very short period of time, is usually not a good thing.