Ever since the story broke last week that Bernard Madoff had lost perhaps $50 billion of investments entrusted to him by friends, hedge funds, charities, etc., I’ve been looking for the answers to a few questions.

When and how did it first go wrong? Was there one leveraged investment that went bad back before 1999, when the SEC first “investigated”? Did he dig himself out of that hole only to fall into another one or has he been producing bogus statements steadily since then? Who on the inside of the company was aware of the fraud? And what was the conversation like between father and sons before they turned him in?

One thing is clear; the man will now find out who his true friends are.

The same might be said, as well, for Governor Rod Blagojevich, who has succeeded in perpetuating Illinois’ reputation as the place where politicians think first of themselves, and second, of their constituents.

In both cases, trusts were betrayed.

So let’s talk a minute about trust. How do you know whom to trust? Most of us trust family and friends. We also trust people who are referred by them. A lot of us don’t trust politicians. We trust people who’ve dealt fairly with us before. And, to a certain extent, we trust major institutions.

I know, for example, that Verizon will not intentionally swindle me. At the same time, I can’t trust their repairman to arrive when promised.

And when I drive on the Massachusetts Turnpike, while I trust that my toll will ensure passage to my chosen exit, I also fear that individual employees of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority are defrauding the state (and thus me) by claiming false overtime, undeserved disability pensions and more. But I can’t do much about it, except vote in ways that minimize the Authority’s growth and power.

I’m not sure how it’s happened, but over the years I’ve become more sensitive to the issues of right and wrong. Following this interest, a few years back I bought a book on Amazon called “Doing the Right Thing; Cultivating Your Moral Intelligence.” Unlike traditional books on morality, this one is neither academic nor religious; instead it recognizes the complex choices people must make in the world today, and presents ways to think through them, in order to make the best choices. I think it helped, and I recommend it.

In fact, I think Bernie Madoff should have read it.