Sam Israel had a problem. The investors in his hedge fund, Bayou Capital, were expecting spectacular returns. Sam himself had spent years proclaiming the fund's brilliant results. In reality, Sam had been marking his own homework, publishing fraudulent accounts and using these to lure in new investors.
What to do? Well, the logical thing of course: wait around for an extraordinary profitable streak, and in the meantime keep up the ruse...
We're bringing you an episode of Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford. This episode was recorded live at the Bristol Festival of Economics and studies three incredible investment scams. How do pyramid and ponzi schemes snowball out of control, flattening victim and fraudster alike?
For a full list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Selling the Dream
Bonus 2: Caller Episode
Bonus 1: Coaching or Culting?
S3 E10: We Die The Way We Lived
S3 E9: Coaching the Uncoachable
S3 E8: Striving Is Bad for Your Health
S3 E7: The Inmates Running the Asylum
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S3 E3: The MLM-to-coaching pipeline
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Introducing Other People's Pockets: What’s in Your Wallet?
S2 E10: Caveat Beware
S2 E9: Drowning in the Conspira-Sea
S2 E8: Your Call is Important to Us
S2 E7: Green Eggs and Scams
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