January 8, 2009
The Wizard of FraudzEvery time the economy takes a nose-dive, we roust up a few
frauds and a bevy of humbugs.
This outing's big villain is financier Bernard Madoff. For decades, Madoff made
off with billions of other people's money by pretending to invest it honestly.
Instead, he paid off early "investors" with the "investments" of later
"investors." To keep the Ponzi scheme going, Madoff had to keep widening the
circle of the victims -- which meant that he and his boosters had to keep
whispering sweet cryptic nothings to awestruck big-pocketed individuals eager
to join an exclusive club.
Some prospects declined. They now say they could get no real information about
how he was investing. What? Oracular pronouncements weren't enough for these
skeptics?
Another Delphic entity that pretends to "invest" our money is the federal
government. Its masterminds, too, claim to know everything about doing
financial magic -- but explain nothing. The Federal Reserve, for example, is
refusing to comply with media requests for info on the "emergency loans" now
being handed to ailing companies.
America's government officials "know," somehow, that they can "invest" in
decrepit, floundering, washed-up firms and industries, using money siphoned
from actually productive enterprise, while always paying off old government
debt with new government debt, adding up to trillions . . . and somehow
everything will turn out all right.
Pay no attention to those men behind the curtain!
This is Common Sense. I'm Paul Jacob.
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