麦道夫和庞氏骗局.doc

麦道夫和庞氏骗局译者：Jacobthefool ANNALS OF FINANCE 金融史册 Madoff and his Models 麦道夫和庞氏骗局 Where are the snow jobs of yesteryear? 追溯去年那场惊天巨骗 by Ron Chernow 作者：荣恩·切诺 In financial history Ponzi schemes—the fraudulent enterprise of paying off old investors with money collected from new ones—are the most peculiar of crimes. Before they are detected they seem exquisitely pleasing to perpetrators and victims alike. The fraud appears to be a bountiful gift that the confidence trickster a generous soul and a financial wizard to boot has bestowed upon a grateful world. Investors frequently revere the schemer endowing him with magical properties. The schemer in turn may come to believe that his scheme isn’t altogether shady and that he will someday generate the sensational returns advertised. For the duration of a Ponzi scheme it may seem like a victimless crime. Not surprisingly when the impostor is exposed the victims experience profound hurt and disillusionment having trusted implicitly in the schemer against a chorus of naysayers. 在金融史上，庞氏骗局是最别具一格的犯罪形式，它利用空壳公司把从新投资人那里募集的资金用以偿付过去的投资。在被立案侦查之前，此类骗局对于潜在的罪犯和受害者来说似乎都有着不同寻常的吸引力。骗子们怀揣着看似高洁的灵魂，以金融奇才的面目出现，他们把骗局装扮成一件礼物，慷慨大方地馈赠给这个感恩的世界。投资者们则常常赋予这类骗子魔幻色彩，对他们毕恭毕敬。反过来，骗子则可能相信自己的伎俩并非完全是见不得人的，并认为有一天自己会创造出能够产生轰动效应的投资回报。在行骗的过程中，庞氏骗局似乎是一个没有受害者的犯罪案件。令人毫不意外的是，当诈骗犯的身份被揭露之后，受害者会承受挥之不去的痛苦和美梦幻灭后的失望；而在这之前，他们在一致的反对浪潮声中，毫无保留地相信了骗子。 Charles Ponzi was probably the most colorful and outlandish practitioner of the scheme that bears his name. An Italian immigrant and postman’s son who arrived in Boston in 1903 he had charm imagination and chutzpah of epic proportions. At first he worked as a grocery clerk and dishwasher but he soon got a job with a bank in Montreal that paid exorbitant interest rates and stole money from depositors—invaluable training for his future exploits. After being arrested for forging a signature on a check Ponzi was clapped into a Quebec jail for twenty months and told his unsuspecting mother that he had landed a job as a “special assistant” t