Ponzi'd!

Dreams and aspirations. The lifestyles of the rich and famous. Rolling in money and making every wish come true. We all want something better for ourselves all the time, and most of us try very hard all their lives to make that happen. We fantasize about winning the $20-million lottery jackpot, or hope to make enough money somehow to afford a comfortable life.

For some, though, even the best is not good enough. The former executives at Enron, for example, could have had a fairly successful company and more-than-reasonable pay and bonus packages, but they decided to enrich themselves even more by hook or by crook.

Most people, it is to be hoped, work towards their dreams through hard and honest work. This is why some invent new technology or create innovative ideas to turn them into successful businesses. Building a strong and powerful company that provides goods or services that consumers go absolutely nuts for is one of the ways in which people with the right ideas and talents can get rich and famous. Best of all, this avenue to untold riches is perfectly legal.

I was brought up on the principle that self-reliance and hard work will result in success and personal happiness. I have never believed in the nonsense that people should be forced into retirement at age 65. Anyone should be allowed to work for as long as he or she wants or is able to. I, for one, love the work I do and plan to keep on working until the day I drop.

But in the recent background stories to some of the high-profile fraud, Ponzi, schemes that have made the news – Bernie Madoff, Earl Jones and now the Calgary-based Ponzi scheme – I have noticed a theme that seems common to most of the “victims”.

“They took all my savings, and now I have to keep working past age 45.”

“I’d planned to retire by the time I was 38, but now I have to start from scratch all over again.”

What sort of work-shy individual plans to stop working at 38? Sure, there are some who could afford the luxury, but they are usually not the beneficiaries of some surefire investment scheme with big payouts, but those who have built successful businesses through their own sweat and blood – or actors, singers and other artists who managed to hit the big jackpot of stardom somehow.

“I equate it to the old style of beliefs and misperceptions around the horrible crime of rape. We equate this to financial rape.” – Joey Davis

It is this aversion to honest work that drove many of the “victims’” greed. In the Calgary scheme, for example, one such “victim” had been told and shown proof that it was a fraudulent undertaking, yet his greed – and possibly his unreasonable desire to retire at a young age – won out and he proceeded to invest all his money, which is all gone now.

Joey Davis, of the Be Strong Foundation, a support group for victims of financial fraud, calls such Ponzi schemes “financial rape”. But is it really “rape”? Actual rape occurs when the victim is violated against her/his will. The “victims” of this and other Ponzi schemes, however, willingly consummated the “affair” and now complain because the “sex” was not as good as they had thought it would be.

Make no mistake about it: the Madoffs of the world who operate such schemes are criminals, and they must be treated and punished as the criminals they are. But the vast majority of “victims” are willing, and greedy, participants in their own financial demise.

Reading about suicides and the hardship these people invariably experience does make your heart go out to them – but just a bit. For, then you realize that they wanted to get rich (not a bad aspiration in itself), but without doing any real work for it, or doing due diligence. They fall into a group of individuals who seem to think that life and its goodies must be handed to them on a silver platter. They will readily believe that an investment can yield a return of 150 percent within a single year (there is no such thing).

My parents would tell me, “You’re the architect of your own future.” Unlike real rape or murder victims, who for no fault of their own have their lives tragically altered or taken away from them, the “victims” of Ponzi schemes and similar scams are instrumental in their own “victimization”. Many of them, in fact, actively pursued it.

Let the criminals rot in jail. The “victims” will hopefully learn an important life lesson – there is no such thing as easy or quick money – and become better at navigating the vicissitudes of life.

Comments

[William Munsey]

Werner,

When I read your line: "I, for one, love the work I do and plan to keep on working until the day I drop" I wondered what it is you do.

I mean other than this writing thing on the web... which I don't believe you can really call work... can you?

Will

[William Munsey]

I have a grand retirement plan: work until death, hope my children are out of school, semi-literate and that my mother-in-law leaves enough money for my wife to survive.

[Werner Patels]

I have a grand retirement plan: work until death, hope my children are out of school, semi-literate and that my mother-in-law leaves enough money for my wife to survive.

That's actually a much better plan than I have seen from any left-wing/socialist Big Government.