Twisted Titan
7th December 2011, 06:21 AM
http://www.sovereignman.com/expat/a-very-subtle-form-of-theft/
Say what you want about him, but Bernie Madoff was a guy who knew how to keep the party going. For years, he ran one of the largest private-sector Ponzi schemes in history and always heeded the golden rule of financial scams: make sure your inflows are greater than your outflows.
He was finally done in when redemptions exceeded new investments. He didn’t have enough cash to pay out investors, and he wasn’t able to scam more people into paying in to the scheme. As a result, Madoff finally had to admit that the whole thing was a total fraud.
Like any good scam artist, they’re appealing to the masses first; all over Europe, governments are sponsoring new marketing campaigns suggesting that it’s people’s patriotic duty to buy government debt
In Spain, they’re actually issuing instruments called ‘Bonos Patrioticos,’ or ‘patriotic bonds’. Ad campaigns say that the bonds are “good for you, good for the future.”
In Ireland, they’ve issued “Prize Bonds” which carry a 0% interest rate; instead of receiving interest, bondholders are entered into a weekly lottery contest. Naturally, lottery winnings are only possible as long as people keep buying the bonds… pretty much the definition of a Ponzi scheme!
Say what you want about him, but Bernie Madoff was a guy who knew how to keep the party going. For years, he ran one of the largest private-sector Ponzi schemes in history and always heeded the golden rule of financial scams: make sure your inflows are greater than your outflows.
He was finally done in when redemptions exceeded new investments. He didn’t have enough cash to pay out investors, and he wasn’t able to scam more people into paying in to the scheme. As a result, Madoff finally had to admit that the whole thing was a total fraud.
Like any good scam artist, they’re appealing to the masses first; all over Europe, governments are sponsoring new marketing campaigns suggesting that it’s people’s patriotic duty to buy government debt
In Spain, they’re actually issuing instruments called ‘Bonos Patrioticos,’ or ‘patriotic bonds’. Ad campaigns say that the bonds are “good for you, good for the future.”
In Ireland, they’ve issued “Prize Bonds” which carry a 0% interest rate; instead of receiving interest, bondholders are entered into a weekly lottery contest. Naturally, lottery winnings are only possible as long as people keep buying the bonds… pretty much the definition of a Ponzi scheme!