A. Stanford has apparently been found guilty of running one. Any idea what the punishment is likely to be down in Texas? Usually harsh down that way.

Apparently, could be up to 20 years for the most serious offence or longer if judge decides he should serve consecutive rather than concurrent terms for the various offences.

Bum sex with Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie?

The US needs 'smaller government' and less regulation.

Apparantly.

What a wonderful image



Maybe they should start clapping a few more bankers and corporate shysters in irons, that may concentrate their minds a little

The UK is too soft. IMO Goodwin should have been brought to book.

They took away his knighthood. Hasn't he suffered enough?

Running a Ponzi scheme is a tad different from being useless. What's amazing about this and others is just how long these schemes run for, and how many suckers they can get to invest.

It is/was the system. If we don't change that, we'll get the same sort of behaviour from similar types of people. The reason the bankers behaved that way was not because they were mad or bad (they may have been, but that is rather beside the point), but because that behaviour was incentivised.

Retrospective revenge is shutting the gate after the horse has bolted and won't prevent a repeat - which is the crucial thing. Indeed, my fear would be that people would think it has been dealt with and move on.

I have actually met someone, one of Mrs D's cronies, who was caught by this one! Anyone who thinks 20% per month returns are to be consistently had is silly. It all comes down to greed - these people sell to greedy fantasists who think they can get rich(er) quickly.

You could probably get away with running a Ponzi scheme for much longer if the operator was a little more realistic with their return forecast. That way, people get less suspicious.

Not that I would advocate running a Ponzi scheme, of course.

You wouldn't then attract the numbers required to make it work. As Dally said, it's all about greed and a mistaken belief that some whizz-kid has managed to buck the prevailing rates of return.

I know that really. One of the most famous Ponzi schemes was operated by Lou Pearlman, the music 'svengali' who controlled O-Town and Nsync, and other boybands we've never really heard of. If you read his wikipedia page, he was a crook of the highest order. He won't be seeing daylight for some time yet, if ever.

BCCI was another. They attracted small to medium depositors by offering interest rates way above what could be found on the high street. Headed by a Pakistani, the bank attracted many Muslim Asian investors, even though making money from money is classed as Riba (usury), they instantly gorgot the Koran when it suited them. BCCI was also involved in some serious money laundering for organisations and individuals as diverse as Saddam Hussein, Noriega, the CIA and various Colombian drug cartels.

I remember reading in Private Eye about how corrupt BCCI were for months (and possibly years) before it all went tits up. It still amazes me that anyone still had any money in it by the ned.

The most sadly, funny thing I recall about BCCI was allegedly that they wrote certain of the key loan documentation in Urdu. When the auditors sent an Urdu speaking member of staff to join the audit team someome at BCCI complained about the lad / girl and he was taken off the job!