Time To Pay The Piper

The Ponzi Scheme.
Now there's an idea with staying power.
Also known as The Bubble, Peter to Paul and the Discretionary Game. It has been practiced by assorted grifters and money men throughout time immemorial. The scheme is named after the daper Charles Ponzi, an Italian immigrant who pilfered around 15 million in cash in just over six months. The swindle relies on a simple premise and has been played with bonds, stocks, corn and worthless pieces of paper.

Eager investors are enticed with the promise of extremely high returns over a very short period of time. Dividends or interest is then paid to them with funds from later investors. Satisfied customers, referred to as "songbirds", pass on word of the great opportunity to friends, family and business associates.

Bernard Madoff just admitted to the largest Ponzi scheme ever perpetrated. Stretching for decades and global in it's reach, the total take looks to be nearly fifty BILLION dollars.

Ponzi will likely keep his namesake but the crown has been relinquished. It's going to be tough for anyone to knock Madoff from his pedestal. But as the losses spread and the list of victims grows, it is a good bet that someone is already trying.

BusinessPundit.com highlights ten of the "Nastiest Ponzi Schemes Ever" and here's a couple more they left out.

520 Percent Miller
In 1899 after losing his life savings in a phony stock swindle, Miller decides to turn the tables.
He creates the Franklin Syndicate, claiming to have learned the secret to reaping huge profits on Wall Street. He hangs a sign in his apartment window and places ads in the newspaper offering 10% interest a week, 520% a year. Miller pulled in over half a million dollars before fleeing to Canada, but he proved more Mope than Mastermind. Police lured him back to the U.S. claiming that his infant son was dying. He was arrested and served 10 years in Sing Sing

Enron
Accused by Congress of operating a vast Ponzi Scheme, Enron's directors sought to deceive investors while enriching themselves. In cahoots with their accounting firm Arthur Anderson, Enron's executives overstated profits by hundreds of millions of dollars. They used an intricate web of secret partnerships to obscure the fact that the company was in fact bleeding cash. They attempted to plug that leak by inflating energy costs for millions of Californians.

Before it's total collapse, the company's share price plummeted, decimating employee pension plans and leaving over five thousand out of work. Kenneth Lay (CEO) and Jeffrey Skilling (COO) were found guilty of securities fraud and sentenced to 45 and 24 years respectively.