50 BILLION Dollar Scam
So this isn’t new news any more but holy crap. 50 billion dollars literally disappearing.
So if you don’t know about it i’ll fill you in.
Bernard Madoff, the guy who was basically in charge of Nasdaq some time ago was just charged with running the biggest ponzi scheme ever. If you don’t know what a ponzi scam is go join a random PTC site and you’ll probably find out unfortunately. Basically you give me your money and a say i’ll give you a 10% return each year. The problem is that many legitimate opportunities offer the same thing. How it is supposed to work is they invest your money, make a bunch, and give you that sweet 10% a year. In a ponzi scheme either there is no investment happening at all, or not enough to make the 10%. Early investors still get their 10%, but it comes from the principal investment of later members. The problem is that as more and more people join the it requires more an more people to join at a faster rate to keep being able to keep paying people. Eventually the whole thing collapses and people get screwed.
So basically this guy didnt come up with anything new, he didnt reinvent the wheel, he jsut made one huge ass wheel. People trusted him because he had a good reputation. As far as my understanding goes he originally meant for it to be legitimate , but when things didn’t go his way int he stock market rather than facing failure he turned it into a scam.
The impressive part is that no one knew it was a scam but him, and it wasnt just some shady basement operation it was a real company with other employees who all thought it was real. He finally came clean to his two sons, one of which turned him in, at least thats what i heard.
A sad part is one of the high up guys killed himself, he was found dead at his desk with his wrists slit. Now i can understand how he would feel bad about losing so much of peoples money, but I mean come on, its just money. I guess that is a down side to being insanely rich, money isnt just something you need to buy things, it becomes your life.
Now a bunch of previously crazy rich people are dirt poor. Its hard to feel sorry for them isn’t it? Not that I don’t to some degree, but I think these people should of been smarter. Im a big fan of the don’t put all your eggs into one basket saying, because when that one basket is dropped your screwed.
In case you’re wondering well won’t these people get their money back? The answer is no, because it doesn’t exist any more. It was actually invested int he stock market, but it basically doesn’t exist any more. I think there is talks about the government helping people out. But if it does happen it will take awhile, and chances are they will receiver only a small fraction of what was lost.
There you have it, a quick summary of the largest ponzi scam ever. Theres a cbc documentary about it if you want to learn more. Also as always google is your friend.
Take care,
-Roy
so sad about the news, friend of mine lost half of his retirement saving in this Madoff thing. lucky he still have time to collect some, imagine that poor seniors go to this scam with all their saving.
I love your blog post! It really hit it on the head! Would you mind terribly if I place a link back from my site at whiterabbitcult.com?
Hey Roy Blacksail(I hope that is what your name is),
I came over to thank you for the comment you posted 1 month ago(I actually read it now), pus I have a few pieces of advice:
1)It doesn’t make sense to have two widgets of recent posts on the blog.
2)Nowhere on the blog cold I find your name.
As for this article, it amazes me to read of such a fraud!