A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to investors from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors rather than from any actual profit earned.
The Ponzi scheme usually offers returns that other investments cannot guarantee in order to entice new investors, in the form of short-term returns that are either abnormally high or unusually consistent.
The perpetuation of the returns that a Ponzi scheme advertises and pays requires an ever-increasing flow of money from investors in order to keep the scheme going.
The system is destined to collapse because the earnings, if any, are less than the payments. Usually, the scheme is interrupted by legal authorities before it collapses because a Ponzi scheme is suspected or because the promoter is selling unregistered securities.
As more investors become involved, the likelihood of the scheme coming to the attention of authorities increases.
I have re-read this a number of times. Is it not basically what our GOVERNMENT is doing?
Maybe we should put Madoff in as Secretary of the Treasury, or some similar position, at least an advisor, instead of in Prison.
NOW, through the internet, he can show thousands, maybe millions, how to do what he did.
Remember Captain Crunch? The phone company wishes they had hired him rather than send him to jail, cost them millions.
He is smarter than some of the SMARTEST, he would be a cinch in Washington
