Immediately, she told me about the largest scam in the world in the 20th century - the Ponzi scheme.
Ponzi scheme is one of the oldest and most common investment frauds. It is a variant of pyramid scheme. Many illegal pyramid schemes use this trick to amass money. This deception was initiated by a speculative businessman named Charles Ponzi.
Invented. It refers to the deceptive behavior of defrauding investors' investment with the promise of high return on capital, and using the investment of subsequent investors to repay earlier investors.
Charles Ponzi was an Italian who immigrated to the United States in 1903. He worked various jobs in the United States, including as a painter, and wanted to make a fortune. He had been imprisoned for forgery in Canada, and in the United States
Atlanta was imprisoned for human smuggling. After more than ten years of being inspired by the American dream of getting rich, Ponzi discovered that the fastest way to make money was finance. So, starting in 1919, Ponzi hid his history and came to
Boston, devised an investment plan to sell to the American public.
This investment plan sounds very simple. It is to invest in something and obtain high returns. However, Ponzi deliberately made this plan very complicated so that ordinary people cannot understand it at all.
In 1919, World War I had just ended and the world economic system was in chaos. Ponzi took advantage of this chaos. He claimed that he could make money by buying some kind of European postal notes and selling them to the United States. The country
Due to factors such as policies, exchange rates, etc., many economic behaviors are generally difficult for ordinary people to understand.
In fact, as long as you understand a little bit of financial knowledge, experts will point out that it is impossible to make money in this way. However, on the one hand, Ponzi made a fuss about finance, and on the other hand, he set up a huge bait. He claimed that all investments are in the four
You can get a 50% return within fifteen days.
Moreover, he also gave people evidence that seeing is believing: the first batch of investors did get the returns promised by Ponzi within the specified time. As a result, subsequent investors followed suit in large numbers.
Within a year or so, almost 40,000 Boston citizens, like fools, became investors in Ponzi's money-making scheme, and most of them were poor people with dreams of getting rich. Ponzi received a total of about 15 million U.S. dollars.
Small investments, with an average investment of several hundred dollars per person.
At that time, Ponzi was called by some ignorant Americans as one of the three greatest Italians, along with Columbus, who discovered the American continent, and Marconi, the inventor of radio, because he discovered money just like Columbus discovered the New World. Ponzi lived
He went to a villa with twenty rooms, bought more than a hundred sets of expensive suits and special leather shoes, owned dozens of gold-encrusted crutches, and bought countless expensive jewelry for his lover.
The pipes are all set with diamonds.
When a financial expert exposed Ponzi's investment fraud, Ponzi also published an article in the newspaper to refute the financial expert, saying that the financial expert knew nothing.
In August 1920, Ponzi went bankrupt. The money he received, according to his promise, could buy hundreds of millions of European postal notes. In fact, he only sold two. After that, the Ponzi scam became a
A technical term that means using the money of later investors to reward previous investors.
Ponzi was sentenced to five years in prison. After he was released from prison, he committed several similar crimes and spent more time in prison. In 1934, he was deported back to Italy, and he tried to deceive Mussolini again.
, failed to succeed. In 1949, Ponzi died in a charity hall in Brazil. When he died, the inventor of the Ponzi scam was penniless.
In less than a hundred years since Ponzi, various Ponzi scams have emerged one after another around the world.
Speaking of this, she said with a smile: "Although various Ponzi schemes are diverse and ever-changing, they essentially all have the same common characteristics inherited from the ancestor Ponzi. The first is low risk and high return.
Characteristics of investment rules.
As we all know, it is an iron law of investment that risk is proportional to return. Ponzi schemes often do the opposite. Scammers often attract investors who do not know the truth with higher rates of return and never emphasize the risk factors of investment. Various types of
The rates of return in cases may vary. Some are ridiculously high. For example, the investment promised by Ponzi can get a 50% return within forty-five days. Some are steady extraordinary returns. But no matter what, the scammer is a scammer.
They always strive to design an investment path that is much higher than the market average return, without ever revealing or emphasizing the risk factors of investment.
Second, the fund transfer feature of tearing down the east wall and replenishing the west wall. Since the promised return on investment cannot be achieved at all, the return on investment for old customers can only be achieved by relying on the addition of new customers or other financing arrangements. This is very important for
The flow of funds in a Ponzi scheme makes quite high demands.
Therefore, scammers always try to expand the scope of customers and broaden the scale of absorbing funds to obtain enough room for funds to be replenished. Most scammers never refuse the addition of new funds, because as the cake gets bigger, not only do they reap the benefits
It is more substantial, and the risk of the capital chain breaking is greatly reduced, and the duration of the scam can be greatly extended.
Third, investment know-how is unknowable and non-replicable. Scammers try their best to exaggerate the mystery of investment, keep investment know-how secret, and strive to create their own image of genius or expert.
In fact, due to the lack of real investment and production support, scammers have no way to make money that they can carefully consider, so trying to keep the investment mysterious and promoting the non-replicability of investment is one of their effective tactics to avoid doubts from the outside world.
.At that time, a reporter from the "Boston Global Times" wrote an article exposing Ponzi's scam, but Ponzi refuted it on the grounds that he did not understand financial investment.
Fourth, the counter-cyclical characteristics of investment. The investment projects of Ponzi schemes seem to never be affected by the investment cycle. Whether it is industrial investment related to production or financial investment related to market conditions, investment projects always seem to make guaranteed profits.
No compensation.
The fifth is the pyramid characteristic of the investor structure. In order to pay the high returns to the investors who joined first, the Ponzi scheme must continue to develop and attract more and more investors through inducement, persuasion, family affection, connections, etc.
Participate, thereby forming a pyramid-like investor structure.
The few insiders at the top of the tower make profits by exploiting the large number of participants at the bottom and in the tower. By making extensive use of friends, family and business partners to develop downlines, some people receive commissions for successfully attracting investment, and the downlines develop new downlines.
Line", snowballing into a pyramid structure."
I said: "The situation you are talking about seems to be similar to a pyramid scheme."
She nodded, "That's true. After all, MLM is also a variant of Ponzi scheme."
I suddenly thought of something: if she talks so much to me, there must be a way to solve this problem, because I know her relatively well, and she usually doesn't talk so much nonsense.
So I asked her again: "You know how to solve this problem, right?"
She glanced at me and said, "Of course I know, but you can't do it."
I looked at her in surprise, "Oh? Why can't I do it?"
She smiled and said: "Don't say you can't do it, even Governor Huang can't do anything about it."
I was even more surprised, "Why?"
She said: "First, investors will not think they have been cheated until the scam is exposed.
Second, in addition to ordinary people, many high-level officials participate in this kind of fund-raising.
If you think about it, many officials' money comes from irregular sources. If they get returns in this way, wouldn't this explain the source of their wealth? This is actually a way of laundering money.
Third, the only way you can solve this matter is to expose the scam now. It is easy to expose the scam. Just check the company's operating conditions and find out the source of its profits.
This is not difficult, because after a quick investigation, you will quickly understand that this company is engaged in the business of demolishing the east wall to repair the west wall. It must be like this. But have you ever thought about it? If you go to check, you will also find the problem.
, and then immediately freeze the company's account, which will still cause huge losses to those who invest later.
Of course, such a result can indeed minimize the losses of investors. But have you ever thought about it? How many people will you offend if you do this? It is inevitable that people who offend this company will even be violently retaliated by them.
Secondly, those investors will also hate you, because they don't think you helped them, but they think you ruined their dream of making a fortune.
What's more, those officials who invested in this company will also be exposed. In this case, you will become the target of public criticism. The final result is that you will be taken down every second for various reasons. Feng Xiao, are you willing?
Do you do such a thing? Do you dare to do such a thing?"
I was stunned because I didn't expect such a small thing to involve so many and complicated issues.
Chang Bailing said it very clearly. If I really want to expose this matter, then the next situation will be unpredictable. My political life will end because of this. This is not the biggest risk. The biggest risk is that I
My safety and that of my family.
When Chang Bailing saw that I was silent, she immediately sighed and said: "Feng Xiao, do you know why I am still willing to see you and tell you this? The reason is simple: I am not a heartless person.
Although I now realize that I should not have made such a mistake with you, you are the second man in my life after all. After all, you have given me such happiness, and I still remember this.
But let me tell you, it’s best to stop this matter. Don’t tell anyone that you came to me to ask about this matter. As people of our level, knowing such a thing must
Taking care of it is organizational and what the people ask us to do. But can we take care of it? No, because we don’t dare to take care of it and we can’t.
But once someone knows that we clearly knew the consequences of this matter but did not take care of it, it will be a dereliction of duty, and we will be punished or even dismissed. This is what is happening now. So I hope you can understand what I just said.
talk."
Of course I understand and understand what she means. In fact, we are all facing a strange circle - we have nothing to do with such things, and we have nothing to do with them. So the only way is to pretend to be confused and pretend not to know anything.
But regarding this matter, I can't pretend to be confused, because I had already raised it to Secretary Rong very confusedly before.
At this time, I suddenly realized something: Maybe Secretary Rong also realized that she was facing such a strange cycle problem, so she made such a phone call to me immediately after talking to me. Moreover, she
She didn't want anything to happen to me, because she saw Secretary Fang's attitude toward me that day, and she also understood that Governor Huang and Lin Yu were behind me.
Therefore, she asked me to hand over this matter to Mayor Wu. In other words, her purpose was to let me leave this troublesome matter to Mayor Wu.
In this way, we will be relieved. First of all, we will take care of it because we are all paying attention to the matter. Secondly, we will also instruct our executive deputy mayor to send someone to investigate the matter secretly. Once there is a problem really
If so, we can shirk our responsibilities no matter what.
Now it seems that Secretary Rong is really powerful, but I am really stupid.
At this time, I suddenly remembered that Mayor Wu seemed to be hesitant on the phone at that time, but he didn't say anything after I told him that this was Secretary Rong's opinion. Maybe he also realized what was going on in this matter.
Hidden huge risks.
He will definitely find a way to resolve it, but maybe he will be alienated from me because of it. After all, such a thing will give him the feeling that I am pushing him into a pit of fire.
Of course, maybe he hasn't realized anything so far, or maybe I've thought too much. But what Chang Bailing said just now is obviously right: the best way is to never be confused about this matter from now on.
However, the feeling of guilt in my heart suddenly started to cause trouble. After thinking about it, I said to her: "I understand what you mean, but I am the mayor of a city after all. If I really don't care about this matter, in the future I will
How should I face those citizens? Yes, they may not know that I did not take care of this matter because of fear, but my conscience will definitely be condemned by myself for the rest of my life."
She looked at me, "What age are we in? Do you still think about problems like this? I just told you that you can do this, but you must be prepared to take the risks. If you are not
If you have such preparations, then don’t do anything. Of course, if you have such preparations, then do it and bear the final consequences. In the final analysis, you must have the courage to be a tragic figure, Feng
Laugh, do you know what a tragic character is? Let me tell you, a tragic character sees himself as a hero, but in the eyes of others he is a loser, and is even hated by others. You know Yuan Chonghuan in the late Ming Dynasty, right? He is the standard
A tragic character. Feng Xiao, let me ask you, are you willing to be someone and do something like him? Do you have that kind of courage?"