Ponzi Madness

American Scofflaw

"It's all just one big lie."
- Bernard Madoff to his sons about his $50 billion "Ponzi" scheme

Here is the important point. Most white-collar fraud goes unreported. Corporations often see simply concealing the losses with creative accounting as preferable to the public admission of having been duped. As a result, only a small percentage of frauds ever become publicly know, fewer still result in prosecutions and convictions.

So, for every Bernard Madoff caught and jailed, it is safe to assume there are others just like him still operating and playing their games. White Collar crime costs Americans ten times as much as street crime (but street crime gets the press coverage).

And the comment about Bernard Madoff's scam being the largest may also be untrue. There are currently allegations against Citi, involving former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, of a ponzi scheme where the losses have reached into the trillions of dollars and may have been a major factor in the take down of the American economy!