Saturday, December 20, 2008

A Strange Kind of Genius

If Bernard Madoff ran a Ponzi scheme, he ran the scheme on a scale and for an amount of time (and for an amount of money) that far outstripped anything that had been done before. See Diana Henriques, "Madoff Scheme Kept Rippling Outward, Across Borders," NYTImes (Dec. 20, 2008) :
But whatever else Mr. Madoff’s game was, it was certainly this: The first worldwide Ponzi scheme — a fraud that lasted longer, reached wider and cut deeper than any similar scheme in history, entirely eclipsing the puny regional ambitions of Charles Ponzi, the Boston swindler who gave his name to the scheme nearly a century ago.
It takes a strange kind of genius -- but genius nonetheless -- to do that.

the dynamic evidence page

coming soon: the law of evidence on Spindle Law

consulting

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I think this case demonstrates a very critical factor in this type of swindle: The fact that people are willing to accept something because there's a lot of money involved.