Kelowna you have a number of inexpensive fun activities to do with the family. You just have to be creative. Here is a list our family came up with:
1) Hiking, biking or exploring. Look around at the number of parks and trails within the city or pick up the Kelowna Map Book and Guide.
2) The EECO centre in Mission creek park. Your children will learn about everything from fish spauning to bear droppings.
3) Kelowna Art Gallery or Hambleton Galleries on Ellis.
4) Alley surfing. If you are a project type family or you are looking for that old motorcycle/car to rebuild with your son... this could be where to start. You would be surprised by the number of people that would be glad to sell you that old VW Van under the tarp in their back yard.
5) Okanagan Regional Library
6) A pet store is always good for killing an hour
7)The Airport - if you go to the North side of the grounds you get a perfect view of the run-way and the planes will fly right over your head, not to mention the Helicopter pad is at that end as well.
8) A play gorund at an elementary school.
9) A Fire Hall - most will have times when tours are available as well as Station 2 is usually a hall one could walk by and have look inside without an appointment.
10) Tolko Mill or Gorman Brothers Mill
11) The Landfill - If you have a trailer and you want to teach your teenager how to back it up, this is the perfect place to practice and give them a safe environment to learn.
12) Ride a double decker bus or ride a city bus for one full loop. You may some parts of town you have never seen before.
13) Find a construction site that has large machinery. Explain what they are doing and how they work to the best of your knowledge.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Ponzi Scheme Explained to Kelowna
I wrote this article for the financial community of Kelowna. I wanted to explain how the scheme works and how people lost so much money from what looked like a good idea.
See a youtube video on how it works.
The Benefit: A promise that the investment will achieve an above normal rate of return. The rate of return is often specified. The promised rate of return has to be high enough to be worthwhile to the investor but not so high as to be unbelievable.
The Setup: A relatively plausible explanation of how the investment can achieve these above normal rates of return. One often-used explanation is that the investor is skilled and/or has some inside information. Another possible explanation is that the investor has access to an investment opportunity not otherwise available to the general public.
Initial Credibility: The person running the scheme needs to be believable enough to convince the initial investors to leave their money with him.
Initial Investors Paid Off: For at least a few periods the investors need to make at least the promised rate of return - if not better.
Communicated Successes: Other investors need to hear about the payoffs, such that their numbers grow exponentially. At the very least more money needs to be coming in than is being paid back to investors.
Steps in the Ponzi Scheme
Ponzi Schemes are quite basic but can be extraordinarily powerful. The steps are as follows:
Convince a few investors to place money into the investment.
After the specified time return the investment money to the investors plus the specified interest rate or return.
Pointing to the historical success of the investment, convince more investors to place their money into the system. Typically the vast majority of the earlier investors will return. Why would they not? The system has been providing them with great benefits.
Repeat steps 1 through 3 a number of times. During step 2 at one of the cycles, break the pattern. Instead of returning the investment money and paying the promised return, escape with the money and start a new life.
How Big Can Ponzi Schemes Get?
Into the billions of dollars. In 2008 we saw the fall of arguably the largest Ponzi scheme in history - Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC. The scheme had all the ingredients of a classic Ponzi scheme, including a founder, Bernard L. Madoff, that had a great deal of credibility as he had been in the investment business since 1960. Madoff had also been the chairman of the board of directors of NASDAQ, an American stock exchange. The estimated losses from the Ponzi scheme are in between 34 and 50 billion U.S. dollars. The Madoff scheme collapsed; Madoff had told his sons that "clients had requested approximately $7 billion in redemptions, that he was struggling to obtain the liquidity necessary to meet those obligations." (Source).
See a youtube video on how it works.
The Benefit: A promise that the investment will achieve an above normal rate of return. The rate of return is often specified. The promised rate of return has to be high enough to be worthwhile to the investor but not so high as to be unbelievable.
The Setup: A relatively plausible explanation of how the investment can achieve these above normal rates of return. One often-used explanation is that the investor is skilled and/or has some inside information. Another possible explanation is that the investor has access to an investment opportunity not otherwise available to the general public.
Initial Credibility: The person running the scheme needs to be believable enough to convince the initial investors to leave their money with him.
Initial Investors Paid Off: For at least a few periods the investors need to make at least the promised rate of return - if not better.
Communicated Successes: Other investors need to hear about the payoffs, such that their numbers grow exponentially. At the very least more money needs to be coming in than is being paid back to investors.
Steps in the Ponzi Scheme
Ponzi Schemes are quite basic but can be extraordinarily powerful. The steps are as follows:
Convince a few investors to place money into the investment.
After the specified time return the investment money to the investors plus the specified interest rate or return.
Pointing to the historical success of the investment, convince more investors to place their money into the system. Typically the vast majority of the earlier investors will return. Why would they not? The system has been providing them with great benefits.
Repeat steps 1 through 3 a number of times. During step 2 at one of the cycles, break the pattern. Instead of returning the investment money and paying the promised return, escape with the money and start a new life.
How Big Can Ponzi Schemes Get?
Into the billions of dollars. In 2008 we saw the fall of arguably the largest Ponzi scheme in history - Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC. The scheme had all the ingredients of a classic Ponzi scheme, including a founder, Bernard L. Madoff, that had a great deal of credibility as he had been in the investment business since 1960. Madoff had also been the chairman of the board of directors of NASDAQ, an American stock exchange. The estimated losses from the Ponzi scheme are in between 34 and 50 billion U.S. dollars. The Madoff scheme collapsed; Madoff had told his sons that "clients had requested approximately $7 billion in redemptions, that he was struggling to obtain the liquidity necessary to meet those obligations." (Source).
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