Quotes & Sayings About Ponzi Schemes

Capitalism is not the simple desire to make a profit. Capitalism is the fantasy that growth can continue at a consistent rate indefinitely. When a child is young, it cannot yet imagine being an adult, so it thinks it will keep on growing forever. The fantasy that you can grow forever is exhilarating, one of the many aspects that make children seem so alive. We live in fantasy, all of us, all of the time, to a greater or lesser extent. — Jacob Wren

I think that fact alone levels everything. Slapstick amazes me, the folly of humans today, the Ponzi schemes, giving birth to eight babies at once, it's amazing ... And I know, it's horrible to have your money stolen and all that, but those are amazing stories. — Laurel Nakadate

Each exposure of previously secret misdeeds - steroid use, Ponzi schemes, rigged intelligence - produces an acute and debilitating psychological effect. — Christopher L. Hayes

Social security isn't a ponzi scheme. It's not bankrupting us. It's not an outrage. It is working. — Rachel Maddow

Assyria soon discovered a painful truth: empires are like Ponzi schemes: financial frauds in which previous investors are paid returns out of new investors' deposits. The costs of holding imperial territory can only be underwritten by loot and tribute extracted by constant new conquests; empires must continue to expand if they are not to collapse. — Paul Kriwaczek

What is interesting is that elephants can accurately and reliably figure out who is friend and who is foe. Compare this to us humans, who still walk down dark alleys at night, fall for Ponzi schemes, and buy lemons from used-car salesmen. — Jodi Picoult

The whole government is a Ponzi scheme. — Bernard Madoff

We do not live in an economy, we live in a Ponzi scheme. — Douglas Rushkoff

Ponzi schemes don't trickle down, they siphon up. — Heather Marsh

Madoff's scam was small compared to Ponzi schemes the government itself runs: Social Security and Medicare. — John Stossel

All ponzi schemes are upheld by a centripetal force caused by those orbiting the circles of power, celebrity and wealth and trying to get in. When the ponzi scheme reaches its point of maximum growth, the force disperses and the ponzi scheme collapses. — Heather Marsh

Because revelations of systemic deception erode our most basic, default expectation of good faith, they play an outsize role in producing a crisis of authority. Each exposure of previously secret misdeeds - steroid use, Ponzi schemes, rigged intelligence - produces an acute and debilitating psychological effect. Vertigo sets in, similar to that experienced by a spouse who, after decades of what he thought was a happy, loyal marriage, discovers his wife has been cheating all along. Suddenly we realize we live in a world entirely more depraved than the one we thought we inhabited. — Christopher L. Hayes