#charles ponzi

[spltlvlhous]

if you were curious about the wall

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

Ideas for future episodes of “Epic Rap Battles of History”:

1) Manuel Noriega vs. Saddam Hussein (theme: dictators who were taken down by the United States)

2) Steven Seagal vs. Ip Man (theme: martial arts fraud against one of the greatest of all-time. Think of this as a spiritual sequel to Lance Armstrong vs. Babe Ruth)

3) Jordan Belfort vs. Charles Ponzi (theme: two of the most infamous con artists who ever lived)

4) Joel Miller and Ellie Williams vs. Jean Valjean and Cosette (theme: fictional traumatized father figures and their daughter figures)

5) Avatar Aang vs. Dmitri Mendeleev (theme: master of the four elements against the founder of the periodic table of elements)

6) Hiawatha vs. Sitting Bull (theme: two of the most well-known Native American leaders)

7) Mary Wollstonecraft vs. Ruth Bader Ginsburg (theme: two of the most well-known feminist icons)

8) Buck Rogers vs. Flash Gordon (theme: the original sci-fi heroes)

[dailyhistoryposts]

On This Day In History

April 3rd, 1882: Charles Ponzi, of the widespread Ponzi schemes, is born.

edit: March 3rd, my bad!

[thosearentcrimes]

Ponzi Scheme Ratings

Tier One: Solicit money for a company exploiting an arbitrage opportunity, use the investments to buy a bank, discover that the arbitrage opportunity isn’t really even there and can’t be scaled up to the investments you’ve taken in, pay out old investors with new investments, encourage people to reinvest so you never have to pay out, keep doing this until someone notices that you are now “taking” in far more money than exists in the entire arbitrage market.

Tier Two: Solicit money for a hedge fund, but never actually invest, pay out investors that try to pull out from the "fund”, none of your investors actually want their money anyway so even though your fraud is pretty obvious, you only actually get made when the financial crisis causes a run on the bank account you’re running the entire scam out of, which the bank “hadn’t noticed” somehow.

Tier Three: Instead of actual transactions of goods or financial products, make up an entire asset class, define the entire value of it by wash trading with it, and don’t even have a fake business plan, so it might not even technically be fraud anymore (as with Theranos, the victim of a sufficiently obvious scam is indistinguishable from a co-conspirator). How this scheme falls apart TBD.

Tier Four: Solicit money to construct/purchase means of production, proposing to buy raw materials and labor, and then sell the finished product at a higher price. Siphon money out of the company before everyone notices that increased supply has driven the price of the product to roughly the cost of your inputs, preventing you from paying the returns on the investment, ultimately causing a financial crash that torpedoes the scheme of the poor sucker over in Tier Two, at which point you leave the company and start a new one.

[aaptwak-420]

Elon Musk has been named "DOOS" of the year by Time magazine.

Elon Musk has been named “DOOS” of the year by Time magazine.

Elon Musk has been named cunt of the year by Time magazine. The man, who has spent much of the pandemic lobbying against Covid-safe policies that would keep his workers safe, was hailed by Time’s editors as one of the biggest cunts they’d ever encountered. Elon Musk has spent much of the pandemic selling off his fortune in case tax laws in America change so that off-shore banking, stock-based…

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[theoutcastrogue]

The Eponymous Mr. Ponzi: The little known story of an age-old scam

Nobody knows who did it first. Swindlers have been pulling off the scam for centuries, paying existing investors with the deposits of new ones to create the illusion of an incredibly profitable investment opportunity. Before 1920, it was known as “robbing Peter to pay Paul” or “the Peter-to-Paul scheme.” For example, Sarah Howe, a fortune-teller and frequent guest of the State Lunatic Asylum in Massachusetts, employed it in 1880 to take in nearly $500,000 from her followers. In 1884, former president Ulysses S. Grant fell victim to such a scheme that left him penniless. But it was Charles Ponzi who, in Boston in 1920, earned permanent naming rights to the scheme by dazzling the investing public and dumbfounding authorities like no other. That sweltering summer, Bostonians of every stripe were all but begging this diminutive investment banker to take their money for an unheard-of return: 100 percent in 90 days. In less than a year, Ponzi raked in nearly $7 million—more than $90 million in today’s dollars. His downfall came as swiftly as his meteoric rise.

[murdoch-histories]

Definitely didn’t realize that Ponzi in the season 11 Christmas special was the Ponzi until way later. Portrayed by Jake Epstein, Charles Ponzi comes to Toronto to swindle money from Station House 4.

Charles Ponzi was born in 1882 in Parma Italy. Most of Ponzi’s childhood is rather blurry and he arrived in Boston in November 1903 on the SS Vancouver. On the voyage over to North America, he lost his money due to gambling.

With only $2.50 in his pocket, he started with odd jobs and moved to Montreal where he landed a job as a bank teller. His bank went bankrupt and once again, Ponzi was penniless. After a brief stint in prison for cheque forgery, he started smuggling Italian immigrants into the US, which got his behind back in jail for two more years.

When he was free in 1918, he married and tried to get a job, but failed. Instead he got a better idea: the Ponzi Scheme. He managed to make 400% on some of the schemes and he managed to buy a modern mansion in Massachusetts with air conditioning and a swimming pool.

He only managed to run his scheme for two years and in 1920, he found himself arrested again. For his charge of 86 counts of mail fraud, he spent 14 years in prison. When he got out, he moved to Rio de Janeiro without a cent.

- According to some, Ponzi would make $250 000 a day.

- a Ponzi Scheme is similar to Pyramid Scheme where investors get paid by the money from new investors. Investors are lured in by promises of high return and little risk.

[greymatterspublishing]