The Amish Bernie Madoff?

Amish have been popping up in the news as of late. Here's a story by Christopher Maag of Credit.com:

An Amish man who promised guaranteed investment returns to thousands of Amish families actually lost half the money, and covered up the losses using a Ponzi scheme that ran for more than a decade, according to a lawsuit filed this week in federal court.
The man, Monroe L. Beachy, 77, allegedly raised $33 million from 2,698 Amish families, nonprofit groups and businesses. He lost $16.8 million of it, but used money from new investors to continue paying dividends to existing ones.

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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Eark_the_Bunny

Well I guess this is ‘okay’ since thievery and cheating people is in the bible.
http://twitter.com/martchand Martain Chandler

What? No pictures of Amish to make fun of?
http://twitter.com/pianoarthur arthurschwartz

Well Bernard L. Madoff and Monroe L. Beachy share the same initials, but in reverse order.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Oliver-Schmieding/100000452523362 Oliver Schmieding
  
  i bet that’s some sort of bible code*shiver*
zebbart

The Amish I work with give me the impression that Amish are particularly vulnerable to pyramid schemes. They know of lots of people in other communities who lost tens of thousands of dollars on the kind of fad animal businesses (pigeons, ostriches, llamas, pot bellied pigs, etc.) where the only money to be made is by selling breeding stock to other credulous investors. Sometimes the seller even promises to buy back the offspring himself, but is never seen again.
ocker3

So, we’re back to making money by the sweat of our brows huh? Damn!
http://imcravingpresidency.tumblr.com/ SedanChair

That’s a lot of barns.
sockdoll

When I lived in Iowa, which has a few Amish communities, the Amish apparently had a reputation for being wealthy people who didn’t flaunt it. I have no idea if that reputation was based in fact, but it seemed as if some of the other farmers in the area envied them.
MarcVader

So apparently despite all religious fervor… there is still greed. Interesting!
squeeziecat

I live in Amish country, what I see is a sense of obligation to the future of the community combined with ferocious practicality. Yes, the Amish grow wonderful vegetables, they also buy the cheapest, junkiest junk foods (cheese doodles, whipped topping) at the local grocery store. They hand-chop the firewood, but they boil the maple sap down over tire fires (I’m not kidding – tires burn long and hot, so they are prized). It’s all about saving money wherever possible. The Amish are the only ones around here who can afford to buy 700-acre farms, because they pool and invest their savings. The emphasis on faith, respect for elders and deep frugality all come together to make for perfect victims of this kind of crime.
knoxblox

Ponzi scheme = pyramid scheme = barn-raising scheme?
jamessw

Sigh… Emailing mom to see if that’s grandma’s cousin…
Jeffrey Kiesnoski

What wrong with what he’s doing. Sounds a whole lot like the Public Pension System we have in place?
DonBoy2

When the Madoff thing came out, I learned that one of the markers/warning signs of a classic Ponzi scheme is “confined to one social/ethnic group”, so that it becomes a sign of acceptance to get into it, I guess.