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The US$1B Ponzi Scheme That Hooked Warren Buffet and the U.S. Treasury (theatlantic.com)
5 points by fortran77 on May 8, 2023 | hide | past | favorite | 2 comments


A part of the narrative just doesn't sound right.

It is not the (usual) Ponzi scheme with final users or (small or large) private investors as victims.

If the IRS agents could determine that the value of one of these trailer was around 13,000 US $ (and sold for 130,000-150,000) it is hard to believe that firms buying hundreds of them did not have some independent estimation done and actually paid 10x for them.

>IRS investigators concluded that the fair market value of each Solar Eclipse—if manufactured in the quantities claimed—was, with a reasonable markup, about $13,000. That was less than one-tenth of the $150,000 that DC Solar charged buyers.


Fascinating story about how solar tax credits led to massive fraud. No doubt a lot of smaller frauds too.




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