I'm sure most of you have heard by now of disgraced financier Bernie Madoff, who swindled some very high profile investors out of millions with a simple Ponzi scheme. I was so stunned reading this news, that this age old tactic could still work, I had to do a little research to see why people would even buy into it. The scheme, titled for namesake Charles Ponzi, is a simple pyramid plan where no one but the initiator usually gets his/her investment returned. What really fascinated me was that Charles Dickens wrote about this in his novel, Martin Chuzzlewitt, long before Ponzi was born! This work, initially written in installments, was first published in 1844. It's incredible how the themes of Dickens' work remain contemporary to this day. Sadly, in this case, a little too true to life! Read some more background on Bernie Madoff at Forbes.com here and a great post by Sasha at Evil Beet here.
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