Old news of the week: Ginko is Gonzo

ditto.

Hopefully many people are a little wiser today. Still that in no way justifies the theft that has taken place.

Has anyone thought about contacting an attorney about some kind of class action suit for all the investors?

Or the FBI?

I wonder if the WTF will ever collapse, eventually converting to new securities.

For those I suggest "Pre WSE New Derivatives" (PWND)

The only thing Ginko accomplished is

Stealing People's money

and

Making Nick P's name mud.

And some guy in Brazil that probably isn't really Nick P's name mud.

The sickest part of a totally sick situation is that the scum's brain is agile enough to have figured out another scam and he can come back with another Av to implement it and no-one, not even LL, can or will know there's anything wrong until it all goes "poof" again.

I think the best part is the implied "I told you so" that will echo forever in the ears of those who supported Ginko and Nick P's shenanigans until the bitter end.

Ponzi would have been proud.

/me wonders where DS will pop up next.

Yeah Nick ran away with some big chunk of US$ change and will almost certainly get away with it.

Dang.. I'm seriously out of the loop.

Was it ever clear how much was paid out versus how much was deposited? I was under the impression that Ponzi schemes cumble under their own weight eventually, bankrupt. Unless he was "smart" enough to close it down early...

I do know they were drawing salaries, but I thought that was relatively small compared to the losses incurred.

I believe they had some kind of last line of defense (Ginko own words) in the region of 2 million L$. Once that got drawn they converted depositors' accounts worth 198 million into GPB bonds. That 198 million figure includes any interest accrued on depositors' accounts (on average at 40% per annum because the interest rate changed over time).

Correction: Only 187 million worth of deposits were converted to GPB bonds. Approx 10 million had already been issued previously bringing the total number of outstanding GPB bonds to 198 million prior to being morphed into WTF bonds.

If you just joined Mahala, you are more than seriously out of the loop.

There has been more drama in SL in the past 3 years than there ever was in All My Children, The Young and The Restless, and As The World Turns combined for the past 3 decades

Well, to 'believe in' the huge figures that were touted, one had to assume they had any kind of profit engine in the first place.

Ah, who wants to disagree that they had anything better than worthless bonds, ridiculous expectations of rental properties, website scheme god-knows-what and just plain old paying old 'investors' with new sucker's money?

So much for the profit engine. That means there never was 64% or 40% or whatever percent more money. Ever. It *never* compounded. The only thing that compounded was greed, as people put more money in.

So strip off a couple of years of insane interest that wasn't there, and what do ya got? A guy paying himself and his friends I dunno, maybe a couple-few thousands a month, and just rolling along keeping enough to sound convincing.

Let's say generously that 5000 a month was cashed out that way for a year among a few people - perhaps that would be in the realm of possibility.

Personally I'd guess far less but let's go with it. 60k is only about $L 16 millions. That's all.

For it to blow up, I'd guess it woulda taken less than $L 10m demanded from a mythical 'reserve' to make it all go boom.

Pure speculation, but at the end of the day, the whole thing is not only really questionable, but fairly small time.

Heh, irony is, I bet getting mediocre jobs would have made the crew a lot more money, for maybe the same or less effort.

Yeah, tell me about it. I log onto WSE only to find out mine is all gone and something called WTF is suppose to make me happy. Isn't WSE just as much a shame if they go alone with making a IPO like that.

In general, that is true for all criminal activity, especially if you factor in mandatory vacations in the slammer.

Post of the day!

Probably true, but that appeal of "something for nothing" is so strong that even sensible people fall victim to it at times.

I think the figure of a couple thousand a month was thrown around, for him and his closest budd .. erm employees.

I didn't see any mention of them quiting their RL jobs to run Ginko though.

Additionally

$2000 a month is about 4 times the average monthly income in Brazil for example.

Nick did say he was in San Paulo.

It allowed me a few interesting English lessons at the investent bank I'm teaching at, and got at least one of the people I teach interested in SL.