Ponzi schemes

How many Ponzi Scheme scripts are being written right now? Ten? A hundred? A thousand, even?
Well, for a few lucky investors who get in on the ground floor, every single one of those scripts could mean big bucks, because I have PATENTED THE IDEA OF A SCRIPT WRITTEN ABOUT PONZI SCHEMES!!!

A big-name firm of show business lawyers have agreed to oversee the collection of royalties from the studios. They certify that the returns on this investment, net of expenses, will be considerable. All they require is a modest bond to cover their initial fees. After that it will be self-funding, and payouts will be automatic.
This is an opportunity offered to SCREENWRITERS ONLY, as a token of my appreciation for all the help they have given me, and in recognition of the fundamental role they play in the movie industry, to partake in that bond.
You must act fast, but DO NOT send money now! You will be contacted individually.
Joking aside...
It now seems that South Africa has its own Bernie Madoff. A man called Barry Tannenbaum, currently residing in Australia (Australia will not extradite South Africans on the grounds that they will get AIDS in a South African prison). Tannenbaum is the son of the founder of one of our big pharmaceutical firms. By all accounts he is a charming, affable guy, well educated, and of course comes from a wealthy family, so he's someone who doesn't need money.
The story behind the scheme is that Tannenbaum had contracts with the big pharmaceutical companies to supply PACs (Pharmaceutically Active Chemicals) which he bought cheap in China and sold at inflated prices to the local companies for the manufacture of, amongst other things, anti-retrovirals. Forged order forms were offered as proof, together with other documentation from lawyers and accountants. The reason why he didn't get trade finance from the banks, but instead was prepared to pay private individuals large returns to induce them to invest, was that the banks took too long to process the loan requests, and he had to move fast to take advantage of (whatever). (And maybe tax advantages to keeping a low profile.)
The details are still coming out, and Tannenbaum has denied scamming anyone. He claims he had a legitimate business but was caught in the economic downturn like everybody else.
I remember a Damon Runyon story. He said you got a racing tip, and then you got a racing tip with a story, and while you could ignore a racing tip, no one could ever resist a racing tip with a story, or words to that effect.
In this case, it was obviously a damned good story, because top people got taken. We know the ex-head of our biggest retail chain and the ex-head of the stock exchange got taken for millions. But many ordinary people got sucked in and lost everything.
I wonder if it is even possible to capture the range and intensity of human emotions the scam has evoked. You don't have to see them. You can hear it in their voices coming through the radio speaker.

A few days ago they interviewed the retail chain head. He didn't confirm it, but he's rumoured to have lost fifty million (Rands, about seven million dollars, but feels like fifty million dollars to us because of our lower salaries). You could just tell he felt absolutely sick to his stomach at being conned. But his reaction was, "Oh well, everyone makes some bad investments. You just have accept it and move on." Because he has plenty of millions left over.
Then there was the businessman on the radio this morning. Two million, probably half his assets. You could tell he felt like a fool, and didn't like it. He wasn't sure whether to cut his losses and move on, or get involved and attempt to bring down the scamsters. He said he knows people driving around in Ferraris paid for by the scheme. He said Tannenbaum used to come over from Australia and host dinners, and make them feel like they were a small group of very select individuals who had the good fortune to be part of an inner circle. Apparently, he was totally convincing in the role.Also this morning, and what prompted me to write, the older woman who had lost everything, sobbing hysterically and threatening suicide and not knowing where to turn. She had put money in on the advice of a broker, and got a good payout (which she declared as income and paid tax on), so she took out a second mortgage on the family farm and put that money in, and told all her friends about this wonderful investment and they put money in as well.

Now it's gone bankrupt she can't look her friends in the face, she hasn't got money for food, she had to give her dogs away because she can't feed them, she can't support her daughters, one in varsity and one with a small child, and she's terrified she'll be arrested as a criminal because she made money from a criminal enterprise, or be asked to pay back the money she received and she hasn't got a penny.
So many emotions anger, fear, revenge, sick-to-the-stomachness (is there a word for it?), shame, humiliation, and relief from those who didn't invest. So many consequences from laugh it off to utter destitution. So many reasons to conceal the truth from fear of being laughed at, to fear of being exposed as a scamster, to fear of having to pay in money thus losing even more, to fear of criminal prosecution even though one was innocently fleeced.
I doubt one movie could capture all the ramifications of a Ponzi scheme. It would need several, from several POVs.

Martin B