Word: businessman
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Though a Boston businessman named Charles Ponzi was the scam's namesake, he wasn't its original practitioner. According to Mitchell Zuckoff, a Ponzi biographer, the reigning king of the "rob Peter to pay Paul" scam was a New York grifter named William Miller, who bilked investors out of $1 million - nearly $25 million in today's dollars - in 1899. After drumming up interest by claiming to have an inside window into the way profitable companies operated, Miller - who earned the nickname "520 percent" due to the astonishing rate of return he promised investors over the course of a year...
...including Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu, who was charged in October with operating a $60 million Ponzi fraud, and former boy-band impresario Lou Pearlman, who in addition to foisting N'Sync on an unsuspecting public also stole $300 million in investor capital over two decades. Earlier this month, Minnesota businessman Tom Petters was indicted by a federal grand jury on 20 counts of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering stemming from his alleged role in a 13-year, $3.5 billion Ponzi ring. Still, the $50 billion fraud Madoff allegedly perpetrated is the most egregious Ponzi scheme to date-unless you subscribe...
...Russian businessman Alexander Kazakov, who makes his money selling luxury home furnishings, and his wife have come to the annual Moscow Millionaire Fair looking for a carpet for the front hall of their newly remodeled apartment in the center of the city. But they're having trouble deciding on colors and how many knots they want per square inch. Then there's the matter of whether they can actually afford to spend $155,000 on a carpet at the moment. "No one knows what will happen next with the financial crisis," Kazakov says. "Everyone is waiting to see." His wife...
...impact the financial crisis has had on that top-tier trend. But after so many years of heady growth, many rich Russians still seem to take the boom times for granted. Kazakov's wife's bravado is shared by many. "Some people are afraid, but I am not," says businessman Alexander (who asked that only his first name be used), as he strolls along the deck of a 58-ft. yacht wearing a shiny leather coat with a fur collar...
...wealthy visitors at the fair have noticed a change this year. "Last year the show was more powerful," says Joseph Morchic, a Russian businessman based in New Jersey. "Everyone here thinks there will be a crisis, but they don't know what it is yet. My friends talk about being afraid, but I don't think they are." Morchic points out that Russia has been through worse before - and bounced back. "You can't compare this crisis to the one in 1998," he says, referring to the year the ruble collapsed and Russia defaulted on tens of billions of dollars...