http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175217/tomgram%3A_andy_kroll%2C_welcome_to_america%2C_sucker/
Ponzi Nation
How Get-Rich-Quick Crime Came to Define an Era
By Andy Kroll
Every great American boom and bust makes and breaks its share of
crooks. The past decade -- call it the Ponzi Era -- has been no
different, except for the gargantuan scale of white-collar crime. A vast
wave of financial fraud swelled in the first years of the new century.
Then, in 2008, with the subprime mortgage collapse, it crashed on the
shore as a full-scale global economic meltdown. As that wave receded,
it left hundreds of Ponzi and pyramid schemes, as well as other
get-rich-quick rackets that helped fuel our recent economic frenzy,
flopping on the beach.
The high-water marks from that crime wave, those places where the
corruption reached its zenith, are still visible today, like the 17th
floor of 885 Third Avenue in midtown Manhattan, the nerve center of
investment firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities -- and, as it
turned out, a $65 billion Ponzi scheme, the largest in history. Or
Stanfordville, a sprawling compound on the Caribbean island of Antigua
named for its wealthy owner, a garrulous Texan named Allen Stanford who
built it with funds from his own $8 billion Ponzi scheme. Or the
bizarrely fortified law office -- security cards, surveillance cameras,
hidden microphones, a private elevator -- of Florida attorney Scott
Rothstein, who duped friends and investors out of $1.2 billion.
The more typical marks of the Ponzi Era, though, aren’t as easy to
see. Williamston, Michigan, for instance, lacks towering skyscrapers,
Italian sports cars, million-dollar mansions, and massive security
systems. A quiet town 15 miles from Lansing, the state capital,
Williamston is little more than a cross-hatching of a dozen or so
streets. A “DOLLAR TIME$” store sits near Williamston’s main
intersection -- locals affectionally call it the "four corners" -- and
its main drag is lined with worn brick buildings passed on from one
business to the next like fading, hand-me-down jeans. It’s here, far
from New York or Antigua, that thanks to two brothers seized by a
financial fever dream, the Ponzi Era made its truest, deepest American mark.
Jay and Eric Merkle, active church members and successful local
businessmen, were well known among Williamston’s residents. In 2004, the
brothers discovered that an oil-and-gas venture, which they had invested
in and which promised them quick, lucrative returns, was a scam. They’d
been duped. Their next move should have been simple: turn in the crooks
and get on with their lives, their pockets a few dollars lighter. Jay
and Eric, however, grasped the spirit of their age and made another
decision entirely -- they teamed up with the guys who had ripped them
off, in the process switching from prey to predator.
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