What is a Ponzi scheme?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme

Hope that helps :)

someone reading Maddox?

This is from today about my neighbor and acquaintance who should have remembered to diversify instead of believing Bernard Madoff.

He (my neighbor) testified before congress and was interviewed by our local NPR. I was shocked when I turned on the radio this morning and heard his voice.

Gail, that is so sad! That Madoff avert your eyes fucker deserves to rot in jail for the rest of his life.

@gailcalled I wonder if it is the same guy I heard (lost 50 years of life savings, had to cash in a life insurance policy to pay the mortgage, etc) on NPR yesterday…..?

I feel badly for the guy….but geez! I gotta agree w/ you….why don’t people diversify?!

It works like this:

I have some worthless certificates printed up. I sell you one for $100, promising to double your money in 30 days. I sell some more of them for $100 to others, and surely enough, in 30 days, I give you $200. The $100 “return” on your money came from the proceeds of the other certificates I sold. The money keeps rolling in as long as people keep buying my certificates. I pay off the first few investors to make it look like I’ve got a hot product. This goes on until the house of cards collapses; later investors are left with worthless paper, but I’ve made a killing, and I’m off to Belize or some other place where I can stash my ill-gotten gains.

Snoopy; That is, indeed, he…(Al Goldstein married to Ruth). I should add that they were visibly VERY high-end spenders; they built a huge house on a hilltop and redid the kitchen and repainted every year, it seems. They had lots of help and drove very expensive cars…

They were always tanned from trips to warm climes in the winter and talkative about trips to places like China in the summer. Ruth went to NYC from here (hicksville) for hair, nails, tootsies, and face every week.

Even I keep money in a money market and some fuddy-duddy Vanguard Funds.

You could argue that our entire global economic system is a Ponzi Scheme since it largely fails to measure social and environmental costs. When the US consumption rate greatly exceeds the carrying capacity of of the Earth (we’d need 5 Earths if everyone consumed like we do) and we have the nerve to encourage other people to raise their GNP and “standard of living” to our level, we are setting ourselves up as a planet for a disaster. Madoff is small potatoes in this context and we’re all in on it. (Are you ready to live like they do in Gambia or Nepal?)
…sigh… But will I still be able to Fluther?