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Robbing Peter to Pay Paul: A Ponzi scheme is a financial scam that involves paying abnormally high returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors. The entire financial system is equivalent to a gigantic Ponzi scheme; which include many interlinked subsiduary Ponzi schemes, such as the sub-prime crisis, the sovereign debt crisis, the derivatives crisis, etc.
Madoff: 'Whole government is a Ponzi scheme'
2/28/2011 1:15:11 PM ET
Associated Press / MSNBC
NEW YORK — Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff said in a magazine interview published Sunday that new regulatory reform enacted after the recent national financial crisis is laughable and that the federal government is a Ponzi scheme.
"The whole new regulatory reform is a joke," Madoff said during a telephone interview with New York magazine in which he discussed his disdain for the financial industry and for its regulators.
The interview was published on the magazine's website Sunday night.
Madoff did an earlier New York Times interview in which he accused banks and hedge funds of being "complicit" in his Ponzi scheme to fleece people out of billions of dollars. He said they failed to scrutinize the discrepancies between his regulatory filings and other information.
He said in the New York magazine interview the Securities and Exchange Commission "looks terrible in this thing," and he said the "whole government is a Ponzi scheme."
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A Ponzi, or pyramid, scheme is a scam in which people are persuaded to invest through promises of unusually high returns, with early investors paid their returns out of money put in by later investors.
A court-appointed trustee seeking to recover money on behalf of the victims of Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme has filed a lawsuit against his primary banker, JPMorgan Chase, alleging the bank had suspected something wrong in his operation for years. The bank has denied any wrongdoing.
Madoff is serving a 150-year prison sentence in Butner, North Carolina, after pleading guilty in 2009 to fraud charges.
In the New York magazine interview, Madoff, 72, also said he was devastated by his son Mark Madoff's death and laments the pain he wrought on his family, especially his wife.
"She's angry at me," Madoff said. "I mean, you know, I destroyed our family."
Mark Madoff, 46, hanged himself with a dog leash in his Manhattan apartment on the second anniversary of his father's arrest. He left behind a wife and four children, ages 2 to 18.
At the time of his suicide, federal investigators had been trying to determine if he, his brother and an uncle participated in or knew about the fraud. The relatives, who held management positions at the family investment firm, denied any wrongdoing.
Bernard Madoff has maintained that his family didn't know about his Ponzi scheme.
» » » » [MSNBC]
» » [Bloomberg Video: Madoff Says Entire U.S. Government a `Ponzi Scheme']
What is a Ponzi Scheme?
Wikipedia
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A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to separate investors, not from any actual profit earned by the organization, but from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors.
The Ponzi scheme usually entices new investors by offering returns other investments cannot guarantee, 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 to keep the scheme going.
The system is destined to collapse because the earnings, if any, are less than the payments to investors. 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.
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While the system eventually will collapse under its own weight, the example of Bernard Madoff's investment scandal demonstrates the ability of a Ponzi scheme to delude both individual and institutional investors as well as securities authorities for long periods: Madoff's variant of the Ponzi scheme stands as the largest financial investor fraud committed by a single person in history. Prosecutors estimate losses at Madoff's hand totaling roughly $21 billion, as estimated by the money invested by his victims. If the promised returns are added, the losses amount to $64.8 billion, but a New York court dismissed this estimation method during the Madoff trial.
The scheme is named after Charles Ponzi who became notorious for using the technique in early 1920. Ponzi did not invent the scheme (for example Charles Dickens' 1857 novel Little Dorrit described such a scheme decades before Ponzi was born), but his operation took in so much money that it was the first to become known throughout the United States. Ponzi's original scheme was based on the arbitrage of international reply coupons for postage stamps, however he soon diverted investors' money to support payments to earlier investors and himself.
Hypothetical example
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Suppose an advertisement is placed that promises extraordinary returns on an investment — for example, 20 percent on a 30-day contract. The objective is usually to deceive laymen who have no in-depth knowledge of finance or financial jargon. Verbal constructions that sound impressive but are essentially meaningless will be used to dazzle investors: terms such as "hedge futures trading," "high-yield investment programs," "offshore investment" might be used. The promoter will then proceed to sell stakes to investors—who are essentially victims of a confidence trick—by taking advantage of a lack of investor knowledge or competence. Claims of a "proprietary" investment strategy, which must be kept secret to ensure a competitive edge, may also be used to hide the nature of the scheme.
Without the benefit of precedent or objective prior information about the investment, only a few investors are tempted, usually for small sums. Thirty days later, the investor receives the original capital plus the 20 percent return. At this point, the investor will have more incentive to put in additional money and, as word begins to spread, other investors grab the "opportunity" to participate, leading to a cascade effect deriving from the promise of extraordinary returns. However, the "return" to the initial investors is being paid out of the investments of new entrants, and not out of profits.
One reason that the scheme initially works so well is that early investors, those who actually got paid the large returns, commonly reinvest their money in the scheme (it does, after all, pay out much better than any alternative investment). Thus, those running the scheme do not actually have to pay out very much (net); they simply have to send statements to investors showing them how much they earned by keeping the money, maintaining the deception that the scheme is a fund with high returns.
Promoters also try to minimize withdrawals by offering new plans to investors, often where money is frozen for a longer period of time, in exchange for higher returns. The promoter sees new cash flows as investors are told they could not transfer money from the first plan to the second. If a few investors do wish to withdraw their money in accordance with the terms allowed, the requests are usually promptly processed, which gives the illusion to all other investors that the fund is solvent.
Ultimate unraveling of a Ponzi scheme
The catch is that at some point one of these things will happen:
1. The promoter will vanish, taking all the remaining investment money (minus the payouts to investors).
2. Since the scheme requires a continual stream of investments to fund higher returns, once investment slows down, the scheme will begin to collapse under its own weight as the promoter starts having problems paying the promised returns (the higher the returns, the greater the risk of the Ponzi scheme collapsing). Such liquidity crises often trigger panics, as more people start asking for their money, similar to a bank run.
3. External market forces, such as a sharp decline in the economy (e.g. Madoff and the market downturn of 2008), cause many investors to withdraw part or all of their funds; not necessarily due to loss of confidence in the investment, but simply due to underlying market fundamentals. In the case of Madoff, the fund could no longer appear normal after investors tried to withdraw $7 billion from the firm in late 2008 as part of the major worldwide market downturn affecting all investments.
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» » » » [Wiki]
Government Bond Market Just a Ponzi Scheme
02/18/10 By Puru Saxena, Daily Reckoning
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02/18/10 Hong Kong, China – Let’s face it, the government-bond market in the West is a gigantic Ponzi scheme. Most governments in the ‘developed’ world are drowning in debt, they are running mind-boggling budget deficits and printing money like there is no tomorrow. Furthermore, under the guise of quantitative easing, their central banks are buying their own newly issued debt!
It is our contention that similar to Mr. Madoff’s hedge fund, the sovereign debt markets in the West have now become gigantic scams. Only this time around, the players have changed and the sums involved are significantly larger. Figure 1 highlights the incredible expansion in America’s national debt. It is noteworthy that at the turn of the millennium, America’s national debt was less than half of its current value. Put simply, American policymakers have taken on more debt over the past decade than they have over the last one hundred years! What is more astonishing is the fact that America is funding a large portion of its newly issued debt by direct purchases from the Federal Reserve.
In other words, as private-sector demand for US Treasuries wanes, Mr. Bernanke is creating new money so that Mr. Obama’s government can bail out insolvent financial institutions. Strangely, the American establishment is quite content to pledge the economic fate of its future generations in order to protect the bondholders of dubious ‘too big to fail’ corporations. Hmm, talk about change… Apart from the world’s largest economy, various other nations in the ‘developed’ world are also following such misguided policies.
For instance, UK’s national debt is exploding and is forecast to reach GBP1.1 trillion by 2011. At present, its national debt is worth GBP891 billion and this equates to GBP14,304 for every man, woman and child in the United Kingdom! Elsewhere in Europe, the situation is equally dire in nations such as Ireland, Spain, Greece and Italy. Furthermore, various countries in Eastern Europe are on the verge of economic doom.
Given the precarious state of so many economies in the West, we are amazed that the respective government bond markets have not fallen apart at the seams. Perhaps, they are all heading down Japan’s route, where national debt is now above 170% of GDP, yet the yield on Japanese government debt is pathetic. But then again, perhaps they are not…
In our view, in the not too distant future, the interest payments on the outstanding national debts in the overstretched ‘developed’ nations will become so large that their central banks will need to create money just to keep the Ponzi schemes going. When that happens, the game will be up and we will probably experience a total breakdown of the fiat-money experiment. At this stage, we do not know when the day of reckoning will arrive but we do know that all Ponzi schemes ultimately collapse under their own weight and this one will be no different.
Given the shocking debt overhang in the West and the threat of surging inflation later this decade, we cannot understand why anybody would want to lend money to bankrupt governments!? In the worst case scenario, these naïve bondholders risk losing their entire capital and the best outcome involves a significant loss of purchasing power due to inflation. Accordingly, we are not investing in sovereign debt and we suggest that you refrain from lending money to dubious governments.
» » » » [Excerpt: Daily Reckoning]
Government's Ponzi Scheme: 1000 Times Worse than Madoff's
Anton Wahlman, Seeking Alpha December 19, 2008
By now we have heard about Bernie Madoff's $50 billion Ponzi scheme, where the life savings of at least hundreds of people – perhaps thousands – went up in smoke. We are all being told that this represents the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time, by a wide margin. Right?
Wrong. Madoff's Ponzi scheme isn't even close to the biggest one ever, by far. The biggest Ponzi scheme is one in which we are all victims, to the tune of close to $50 trillion – not billion. It's the unfunded liabilities of the US Federal Government, particularly Medicare and Social Security.
How does it add up to $50 trillion? In a classical Ponzi scheme, the government has promised pay-outs of monies under the guise of "Social Security" and "Medicare" (among the two largest schemes) for whom taxpayers will be on the hook in the future. What about the Social Security "trust fund?" It consists primarily of IOUs denominated in government bonds, to be paid for by future taxpayers. Madoff would only have been so proud to be in charge of this giant scheme.
There are just over 100 million households in the US, although only approximately half of Americans are significant Federal income taxpayers. What that means is that some 50 million Federal income taxpayers could be the ones carrying the burden of funding this $50 trillion Ponzi scheme. That's $1 million per taxpayer, folks. If the government expands the tax base to 100 million people, it's $500,000 per person. That's the average net worth of all Americans. Everything we own is spoken for in the government's $50 trillion Ponzi scheme.
By now we have heard about Bernie Madoff's $50 billion Ponzi scheme, where the life savings of at least hundreds of people – perhaps thousands – went up in smoke. We are all being told that this represents the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time, by a wide margin. Right? Wrong. Madoff's Ponzi scheme isn't even close to the biggest one ever, by far. The biggest Ponzi scheme is one in which we are all victims, to the tune of close to $50 trillion – not billion. It's the unfunded liabilities of the US Federal Government, particularly Medicare and Social Security.
How does it add up to $50 trillion? In a classical Ponzi scheme, the government has promised pay-outs of monies under the guise of "Social Security" and "Medicare" (among the two largest schemes) for whom taxpayers will be on the hook in the future. What about the Social Security "trust fund?" It consists primarily of IOUs denominated in government bonds, to be paid for by future taxpayers. Madoff would only have been so proud to be in charge of this giant scheme.
There are just over 100 million households in the US, although only approximately half of Americans are significant Federal income taxpayers. What that means is that some 50 million Federal income taxpayers could be the ones carrying the burden of funding this $50 trillion Ponzi scheme. That's $1 million per taxpayer, folks. If the government expands the tax base to 100 million people, it's $500,000 per person. That's the average net worth of all Americans. Everything we own is spoken for in the government's $50 trillion Ponzi scheme.
» » » » [Excerpt: Seeking Alpha]
U.S. Is Bankrupt and We Don’t Even Know It: Laurence Kotlikoff
By Laurence Kotlikoff, Bloomberg Opinion Aug 11, 2010 3:00 AM GMT+0200
[..] This is what happens when you run a massive Ponzi scheme for six decades straight, taking ever larger resources from the young and giving them to the old while promising the young their eventual turn at passing the generational buck.
Herb Stein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under U.S. President Richard Nixon, coined an oft-repeated phrase: “Something that can’t go on, will stop.” True enough. Uncle Sam’s Ponzi scheme will stop. But it will stop too late.
And it will stop in a very nasty manner. The first possibility is massive benefit cuts visited on the baby boomers in retirement. The second is astronomical tax increases that leave the young with little incentive to work and save. And the third is the government simply printing vast quantities of money to cover its bills. Worse Than Greece
Most likely we will see a combination of all three responses with dramatic increases in poverty, tax, interest rates and consumer prices. This is an awful, downhill road to follow, but it’s the one we are on. And bond traders will kick us miles down our road once they wake up and realize the U.S. is in worse fiscal shape than Greece.
» » » » [Excerpt: Bloomberg]
Ron Paul on U.S. Government Ponzi schemes
Monday, January 05, 2009 The Mess That Greenspan Made
From today's Madoff Fraud Allegations & Financial Markets Regulation hearing during which Ron Paul calls fractional reserve banking and our social security system Ponzi schemes.
See also: » » [Ron Paul: Feds run Ponzi scheme] » » [MSNBC: Eliot Spitzer: "The FED is a Ponzi Scheme. Run by Banks".]
» » » » [The Mess That Greenspan Made]
The Government Ponzi Scheme
February 16, 2011 4:30 pm Expected Returns
CNBC: Peter Schiff: Bernie Madoff Says the US Government is a Ponzi Scheme] See Also: [Peter Schiff on Alex Jones: Ponzi Scheme (01/03) (02/03) (03/03)] |
Regular readers of this blog know that I love delving into psychology to understand how we end up in crisis after crisis. The normalcy bias explains why people don’t buy gold since they can’t see major crises coming. The bandwagon effect explains why people believed homes were viable investments even in a no doc, adjustable rate, negative amortizing loan environment. Cognitive dissonance explains why people can’t recognize the government bond bubble.
It’s time to face the truth that we as humans have some serious biases that need to be recognized- otherwise we are doomed to suffer the full consequences of the oncoming debt crisis.
I am an American citizen, so trust me, it’s hard for me to believe what our government is doing. But my natural disbelief does not change the fact that our government is acting irresponsibly. Allow me to make a quick analogy between the U.S. government and Bernie Madoff.
Madoff Ponzi Scheme
The only reason Madoff got away with his Ponzi scheme for so long, besides gross SEC incompetence, was the willful ignorance of his investors. Anyone with even an ounce of financial knowledge could have looked at Madoff’s books and known he was running a Ponzi scheme in about 30 minutes. Using a split-strike conversion strategy to produce consistent returns in all market environments? Absolutely no volatility in returns? Magically going into U.S. Treasuries every single time there was a market sell-off? The truth is, a lot of people in the financial industry knew, they just minded their own business. Madoff”s investors, however, were blinded by his returns, track record, and reputation. This is exactly the same type of willful blindness surrounding the U.S. government.
U.S. Government Ponzi Scheme
The U.S. is running the biggest Ponzi scheme in history. Shortfalls created by early Social Security beneficiaries receiving far more than they put in were funded by future generations. Social Security is solvent only to the extent that there is a new supply of workers that exceeds the number of retirees. Excuse me, but isn’t this the very definition of a Ponzi scheme? Because of the Baby Boom generation, payroll tax receipts exploded and the government ignored the coming funding problems, even taking the liberty to rob the Social Security trust fund. Some argue that because the Social Security trust fund carries U.S. Treasuries that Social Security is fully funded. Ok fine. But when the government redeems these Treasuries, who will pay them? Themselves! This is one big joke, except the joke is on us.
All Ponzi schemes end the same way. Boomers continue to retire at a record pace, which is creating an ongoing shortfall in revenues. Prior shortfalls were covered over by the issuance of U.S. Treasuries, which anyone with common sense knows are a losing bet. After all, the Fed has gone to the extreme of buying Treasuries directly. The writing on the wall can’t be much clearer. The facts aren’t really under question, yet there is this pervasive lack of belief. People tried to warn Madoff investors that he was running a Ponzi scheme with irrefutable facts, but almost no one listened. Understand that as an American you are implicitly invested in the U.S. and therefore have latent biases that you must come face to face with. Strive to be intellectually honest and synthesize the data accordingly. Blindly disregarding a massive debt crisis is foolish.
With the current tools we have, there is no way out of this crisis. Politicians like to argue that they can raise payroll taxes and save Social Security. Let’s get real here. Do you really want to raise payroll taxes in the midst of a recession? State governments are going bust and the worst of the layoffs in the public sector lie ahead, yet politicians think they can raise payroll taxes? Inflation is rising, eating into discretionary income, yet politicians think raising taxes will solve everything? As an aside, it’s humorous that people are calling commodities a bubble. This is inflation created by the monetary policies of the Fed pure and simple. While everyone was talking gibberish about deflation, I was steadfast that inflation was the only real threat. Those who think this inflationary trend is going to end soon are seriously deluded.
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There comes a point where the imbalances in the economy become so great that there is nowhere to hide. Our ability to fund our growth through debt is disappearing. So is our ability to create employment through the public sector. Our entitlements are coming due and our working population is declining relative to the retired population. It’s time to face the music. Gold is going nowhere. Government bonds are going to get demolished. These are the obvious trends people just refuse to believe. So many people are going to get crushed by this crisis that it saddens me. But as usual, no one listens when you preach an inconvenient truth.
» » » » [Expected Returns] » » [Traders Narrative: Is it all Just a Ponzi Scheme?]
A special report on debt: Repent at leisure
Borrowing has been the answer to all economic troubles in the past 25 years. Now debt itself has become the problem. Rising government debt is a Ponzi scheme that requires an ever-growing population to assume the burden—unless some deus ex machina, such as a technological breakthrough, can boost growth.
Jun 24th 2010 Philip Coggan, Economist
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MAN is born free but is everywhere in debt. In the rich world, getting hold of your first credit card is a rite of passage far more important for your daily life than casting your first vote. Buying your first home normally requires taking on a debt several times the size of your annual income. And even if you shun the temptation of borrowing to indulge yourself, you are still saddled with your portion of the national debt.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s a rise in debt levels accompanied what economists called the “great moderation”, when growth was steady and unemployment and inflation remained low. No longer did Western banks have to raise rates to halt consumer booms. By the early 2000s a vast international scheme of vendor financing had been created. China and the oil exporters amassed current-account surpluses and then lent the money back to the developed world so it could keep buying their goods.
Those who cautioned against rising debt levels were dismissed as doom-mongers; after all, asset prices were rising even faster, so balance-sheets looked healthy. And with the economy buoyant, debtors could afford to meet their interest payments without defaulting. In short, it paid to borrow and it paid to lend. Like alcohol, a debt boom tends to induce euphoria. Traders and investors saw the asset-price rises it brought with it as proof of their brilliance; central banks and governments thought that rising markets and higher tax revenues attested to the soundness of their policies.
The answer to all problems seemed to be more debt. Depressed? Use your credit card for a shopping spree “because you’re worth it”. Want to get rich quick? Work for a private-equity or hedge-fund firm, using borrowed money to enhance returns. Looking for faster growth for your company? Borrow money and make an acquisition. And if the economy is in recession, let the government go into deficit to bolster spending. When the European Union countries met in May to deal with the Greek crisis, they proposed a €750 billion ($900 billion) rescue programme largely consisting of even more borrowed money. Debt increased at every level, from consumers to companies to banks to whole countries. The effect varied from country to country, but a survey by the McKinsey Global Institute found that average total debt (private and public sector combined) in ten mature economies rose from 200% of GDP in 1995 to 300% in 2008 (see chart 1 for a breakdown by country). There were even more startling rises in Iceland and Ireland, where debt-to-GDP ratios reached 1,200% and 700% respectively. The burdens proved too much for those two countries, plunging them into financial crisis. Such turmoil is a sign that debt is not the instant solution it was made out to be. The market cheer that greeted the EU package for Greece lasted just one day before the doubts resurfaced.
From early 2007 onwards there were signs that economies were reaching the limit of their ability to absorb more borrowing. The growth-boosting potential of debt seemed to peter out. According to Leigh Skene of Lombard Street Research, each additional dollar of debt was associated with less and less growth (see chart 2).
Stopping the debt supercycle
The big question is whether this rapid build-up of debt—a phenomenon which Martin Barnes of the Bank Credit Analyst, a research group, has dubbed the “debt supercycle”—has now come to an end. Debt reduction has become a hot political issue. Rioters on the streets of Athens have been protesting against the “junta of the markets” that is imposing austerity on the Greek economy, and tea-party activists in America, angry about trillion-dollar deficits and growing government involvement in the economy, have been upsetting the calculations of both the Democratic and Republican party leaderships. To understand why debt may have become a burden rather than a boon, it is necessary to go back to first principles. Why do people, companies and countries borrow? One obvious answer is that it is the only way they can maintain their desired level of spending. Another reason is optimism; they believe the return on the borrowed money will be greater than the cost of servicing the debt. Crucially, creditors must believe that debtors’ incomes will rise; otherwise how would they be able to pay the interest and repay the capital?
But in parts of the rich world such optimism may now be misplaced. With ageing populations and shrinking workforces, their economies may grow more slowly than they have done in the past. They may have borrowed from the future, using debt to enjoy a standard of living that is unsustainable. Greece provides a stark example. Standard & Poor’s, a rating agency, estimates that its GDP will not regain its 2008 level until 2017. Rising government debt is a Ponzi scheme that requires an ever-growing population to assume the burden—unless some deus ex machina, such as a technological breakthrough, can boost growth. As Roland Nash, head of research at Renaissance Capital, an investment bank, puts it: “Can the West, with its regulated industry, uncompetitive labour and large government, afford its borrowing-funded living standards and increasingly expensive public sectors?”
» » » » [Excerpt: Economist]
…And, So It Begins: The Public-Sector Ponzi Scheme is Collapsing
Public-sector unions' house of cards is about to come tumbling down.
Posted by LaborUnionReport Saturday, December 18th at 3:30PM EST
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You’ve been hearing for quite a while now that public-sector unions are a threat to the economic survival of the United States. With an estimated unfunded liability of up to $3 trillion (and perhaps much more), public-sector pensions are a noose around the neck of America’s taxpayers and it is threatening to strangle the nation.
More specifically, you’ve been hearing that the expensive wage and benefits packages that union-bought Democrats have given to their union benefactors could collapse our economy. The question is, can we stop it before it it too late, or at a minimum, contain the damage? Well, little by little, signs are showing that, in some cases, the public-sector house of cards is already starting to fall.
» » » » [Excerpt: Red State] » » [BusInsider: The Scary Reason Europe Is Doomed To Crisis After Crisis..]
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