Ponzi schemes get a lot of attention when big ones go bust. Bernie Madoff, of course, got a ton of attention when his $20-billion con collapsed in late 2008. So did Allen Stanford, who was recently sentenced to 110 years in prison for scamming investors out of more than $7 billion over two decades. But it turns out that the Ponzi industry is much broader and deeper than even the biggest blowups suggest. That’s one lesson of a slim new book, The Ponzi Scheme Puzzle: A History and Analysis of Con Artists and Victims, from Boston University Law Professor Tamar Frankel. More on NPR here.
