Financial pyramids. The system of withdrawal and turnover of funds

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The pyramids as we know them arose relatively recently, at the beginning of the 20th century. But mankind went to their creation for a long time and persistently. So what helps some people sell air and others buy it?

In the 1620s, tulip mania began in Europe. Three rare bulbs could buy a house. In order to buy and then resell the rare onion at a higher price, people mortgaged houses. At the exchange trading, they began to buy and sell future bulbs. That is, an onion is being sold that does not exist, for which you need to mortgage a house, buy a rare onion for it, plant it, wait until it gives daughter bulbs and only then give the money under the contract. This sounds a lot like modern futures contracts.

As expected, the moment came when the boom in tulips subsided and the prices of rare varieties of bulbs that had not yet been born in the throes plummeted. A sharp collapse in prices in 1637 led to a series of tragedies. As in the days of the Great American Depression, bankrupts jumped out of windows. They were saved only by the fact that, unlike American skyscrapers, the Dutch houses 480 years ago were mostly one-story. The bursting bubble bankrupted an entire country.

From Robinson Crusoe to Isaac Newton

At the beginning of the 18th century, on one of the uninhabited islands in Oceania, the British discovered the sailor Alexander Selkirk, who became the prototype of Robinson Crusoe in the famous novel by Daniel Defoe. Rumors of the island paradise began to spread, leading to a kind of gold rush. Allegedly, these lands harbored many natural resources, for the development of which the English South Seas Trading Company was created. The company was founded by the statesman of the British Empire Lord Treasurer Robert Harley. The company's shares began to skyrocket, despite the fact that from the moment of its foundation in 1711 until 1717, the company took no action at all. She only spread rumors that Britain's worst enemy - Spain - allegedly agreed to accept British ships in its overseas ports. In 1720, the company's shares were worth 550 pounds. It was a fortune. Suffice it for comparison to cite the following fact: after 150 years, Dr. Watson, a retired military doctor, had a pension of something like £ 3 a month. The pension was small, but it allowed him to rent a room in a communal apartment with a neighbor, a detective, and there was still.

In parallel with this, other air trading companies began to appear. For example, one for transporting monkeys to England. All their work was reduced to issuing shares and noisy preparation for activities that never began. Needless to say, all these companies went bankrupt at some point? As for the South Seas Company, by the time the stock climbed to £ 890, the entire country, including dignitaries and celebrities, had begun to buy them. This further piqued the interest of the crowd. The price jumped again to 1000 pounds, until a sharp drop in the exchange rate began and the pyramid collapsed. Yes, it’s a pyramid. That is, its main elements are already present here - dividends on shares are paid to the first investors at the expense of the latter.

Sir Isaac Newton was also among the investors and at first even sold the shares profitably. But then he could not resist and bought the package again, as a result of which he lost more than 20,000 pounds. The great physicist then stated that he could calculate the motion of celestial bodies, but not the madness of the crowd. However, there is an interesting moment in Newton's actions to answer the question of whether it is possible to make money on the pyramid. Basically, there is a strategy that minimizes risk. Let's say you invest 100 rubles at 20%. You are at risk for exactly four months. Because after four months the amount doubles, and, minus 100 rubles, the remaining one hundred rubles continue to play. Thus, you returned the money and continue to receive dividends. Now it is important to comply with two conditions - do not invest again and periodically withdraw, say, half of 20%. Thus, every month you will be "dripping" 10%. Two times less than stated, but risk-free and reliable. The main thing here is to put money at the beginning of the game, otherwise it may happen that your money will not last even four months.

Swindlers and charlatans

In the second half of the 19th century, everything was sold. Including fake drugs. In America, they sold what we now call dietary supplements - food additives that are so actively sold now in network marketing, the closest relative of financial pyramids (remember Herbalife). By the way, it is with this that a fundamentally new stage in the development of newspaper advertising in the United States and then throughout the world is associated. Newspapers were inundated with advertisements for phony drugs and medical services. Medical services were presented like this: a patient comes to a doctor, he diagnoses her with breast cancer; sells her an expensive medicine, she drinks it and miraculously recovers. The benefit is twofold - in such a way you can even sell glucose or chalk at a high price, and at the same time make a name for yourself.

The mechanisms of financial scams slowly became more and more sophisticated. "Ducks" began to appear in the press. For example, in 1864, two American newspapers immediately published a note that President Lincoln was recruiting 400,000 recruits. Naturally, this caused panic on the stock exchange. The news implied that a war was being prepared. This means that the markets will shake a lot, which means that we urgently need to invest in the most stable - in gold. This means that gold will rise sharply in price … Those who were behind this "stuffing of misinformation" have become rich in the sale of gold.

Financial pyramids

Here we are smoothly approaching the XX century, when, in fact, they began to build financial pyramids. By the way, this name appeared in Russian only in 1994, in an article by Igor Nikitin's Kommersant-Daily newspaper about MMM. "And although the company may well get out by taking a bank loan, since the interest rates on them are now low, there is a feeling that something is broken in the well-oiled mechanism of JSC" MMM "and the financial pyramid may collapse." The fact that such a term did not exist before this means only one thing - in the public space of our country there has not yet been an awareness of such a phenomenon as financial pyramids. This happened exactly in 1994.

It is believed that the first pure pyramid scheme was invented by the American Italian Charles Ponzi. In any case, it was one of the most high-profile undertakings of modern history, which forced the state to intervene in the situation: the swindler was caught and punished with all the severity of the law.

And it all started very promising. In 1919, Ponzi discovered that one could play on the difference in the cost of postage coupons in different countries - these coupons could pay for a stamp, so they were often sent along with the letter, so the recipient did not spend money when sending the letter in return. So, he put this small profit as the basis of his scheme, called the company The Securities and Exchange Company. And then he began to promise depositors 50% profit in three months. He did not sell the coupons themselves, and he could not, because they could only be exchanged for postage stamps. But what is characteristic, in the excitement, no one thought about it. This happens when hysteria begins.

Within eleven months, Ponzi was selling receipts for almost 250 thousand dollars a day. Suddenly, Post Magazine criticized the enterprise. The journalists just sat down and calculated - in order to give money to depositors, it is necessary that there were 160 million postage coupons in circulation, while there were only 27 thousand of them. Therefore, in August 1920, exactly one year after the creation of the pyramid, federal agents raided the company's office and discovered that the only type of financial activity (well, except for the sale of receipts) is the payment of interest to the first depositors at the expense of … well, of course, the latter. Deceived clients began to lay siege to the company's office, and FBI agents found about four million dollars in the company's accounts (with promissory notes of seven million).

Ponzi served five years, again tried to engage in fraud, he was deported to Italy, from there he went, even under the patronage of Mussolini himself, to Rio de Janeiro to work as a representative of Italy Airlines. There, in Brazil, he died in 1949 in poverty - he had $ 75 in savings. You can imagine what fate would await Ostap Bender if he did realize his dream and got to Rio de Janeiro.

In principle, there is nothing illegal in the scheme of financial pyramids itself. In the agreement, you can write that the depositor is responsible for the risks associated with the deposit and then everything is legal. But often, even risk warnings, written in large letters in the most prominent part of the agreement, cannot stop investors. You yourself remember: in 2011, people in the reanimated MMM brought money in no less agitation, despite the fact that the story with MMM of the 90s was still very fresh in the people's memory.

And how to distinguish a pyramid from an ordinary company that is engaged in real financial activities and also promises a high percentage?

There are, of course, dry formulations - the payment of income should not exceed the surplus value, but often, in order to prove this, you need to carry out a full financial check, but how to get a sanction if outwardly everything looks good for the time being? This is not to mention the fact that some government schemes are quite consistent with pyramid schemes. Example? The increase in the state debt in Russia in 1996-1998. Needless to say, something similar is happening in the United States now.

Recently, in many countries, financial pyramids have been banned. But not in all. In Russia, for example, there is still no such ban. Therefore, it was so difficult to cope with Mavrodi, and in 2012 it took legal tricks to close his new shop.

The most money pyramid in the world

The largest pyramid scheme in terms of the amount of money pumped in is Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC. For several decades (from 1960 to 2008) its head, American Bernard Madoff, defrauded clients for $ 50 billion. Madoff's firm specialized in large depositors. He himself and his agents of influence were included in elite clubs on both sides of the ocean. Since his arrest, only members of the elite Palm Beach Country Club, whose membership fee was estimated at millions of dollars, have lost a total of a billion dollars. And the financier Rene-Thierry Magon de la Vilyuche cut his veins ten days after Madoff's arrest. He lost one billion four hundred million dollars. Sixty-year-old Austrian financier Sonia Kon lost even more. According to rumors, she was forced to hide from the Russian mafia, since among the three billion dollars she lost was the money of Russian shadow workers.

There were also skeptics: Boston accountant Harry Markopolos, nine years before Madoff was exposed, wrote that his empire was the largest financial pyramid in the world, but no one listened to him. Madoff was a very influential and respected financier. During the 2008 crisis, many clients wanted to withdraw their money. Madoff panicked, began to perform strange monetary transactions - to distribute money in the form of bonuses to employees. The sons demanded an explanation, and he frankly confessed everything. He was about to report to the police, but one of his sons got ahead of him - he called a lawyer, he called the Securities Commission. Madoff was arrested and sentenced in 2009 to 150 years in prison. At that time he was 71 years old.

The most massive pyramid

In Russia in the 90s there were many financial pyramids, but none came close to MMM. Mavrodi and his pyramid building have become one of the symbols of modern Russian history. The film "PiraMMMida" was shot about him in 2011 with Alexei Serebryakov in the title role. And the advertising cycle with Lenya Golubkov is still remembered, although almost twenty years have passed. Lyrical sketches from the life of ordinary people definitely fell into the collective unconscious of the people. And this, too, must be taken into account when trying to explain - why exactly behind MMM the defrauded depositors stood like a mountain, why it was Mavrodi who enjoyed such confidence of the people.

Researchers - psychologists, sociologists, cultural scientists - have been closely observing the phenomenon of pyramids for a long time. There are many hypotheses, versions, interpretations, attempts to explain what makes people pay for air.

“The reason, of course, is in people, but you can't look for one reason for everyone,” says psychologist Lyudmila Dragunskaya. - But you can outline the type: these are lonely people, relying on luck. They refuse to analyze the situation, preferring to balance on the brink of an abyss. This risk seems to obscure their eyes and prevent them from assessing the situation in a balanced manner and from all sides. For some, it is the excitement of risk that becomes the goal. Of course, this is not the only explanation.

Psychologist Farit Safuanov believes that an archaic consciousness dominates the typical buyer of air. “These people will not be able to logically explain to you why they are getting involved in a losing business. They think not in logical categories, but in mystical, mythological ones. " This is the thinking of a child, with age it is replaced by rational thinking, but sometimes it continues to exist on a par with him. “Therefore, a person in a difficult stressful situation,” the psychologist continues, “always hopes for a miracle. The more difficult the situation, the more hope for a miracle."

And to justify the simple-minded people, I would like to cite the words of the financial ombudsman Pavel Medvedev. He admits that often he himself cannot immediately recognize where the pyramid is and where not. The pyramids are disguised as completely harmless companies: credit cooperatives, microfinance organizations. At the same time, in recent years, the financial literacy of the population has been growing: "If during the heyday of the MMM, even the deputies invested money in it, now we still have to look for such people."