The Sky's The Limit Analysis

The episode of American Greed that I chose to watch was called “The Sky’s the Limit”. It was about a very brash stockbroker of Wall Street who goes down the wrong path and then becomes sober and re-invents himself. As the episode goes on it shows that maybe he isn’t completely back on the right track. Ross Mandell was a popular guy in high school. He was out for sports, got good grades and was just a well liked guy. When he was 16 years old his father passed away and his life took a turn for the worst. He got into the party scene and started doing drugs. He went to college and after he graduated he worked for his dad’s hand bag business. After a couple years he knew that wasn’t something he wanted to do for the rest of his life so he became a stockbroker. This is where all the trouble starts. Mandell was an amazing talker and was very convincible. He was able to make a good amount of money on Wall Street and one way he spent his money was on partying. He eventually burned through all his money on cocaine and alcohol. In 1990 in realized he had a problem, so he checked himself to rehab. He became a mentor for alcohol admonist and then eventually went back to

Their investors were being deceived. One example of this was David Ash’s story. One of Mandell’s brokers called David and got him to do a private placement. David trusted what the broker had to say and invested 2 million dollars. Little did David know, but he was being lied too by the broker. All investors were promised they would make money with private placements and those returns would be guaranteed. Well the return money was being used by Mandell on partying. By 2001 Thorn Water can’t even take one single company public, so Mandel decided to shut the firm down. He then starts a new firm, Sky Capital, with the same fraud scheme. Mandell was back to blowing his money on drugs, alcohol and strip