What is a Ponzi scheme and can they be easily spotted?

English: Mug shot of Charles Ponzi (March 3, 1882 – January 18, 1949). Charles Ponzi was born in Italy and became known as a swindler for his money scheme. His aliases include Charles Ponei, Charles P. Bianchi, Carl and Carlo. Italiano: Foto segnaletica di Charles Ponzi. Charles Ponzi (Lugo, 3 marzo 1882 – Rio de Janeiro, 18 gennaio 1949) è stato un truffatore italiano. Immigrò negli Stati Uniti, dove divenne uno dei più grandi truffatori della storia americana. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud that usually involves the payment of supposed returns to existing investors from money contributed by new investors. Ponzi scheme organisers often solicit new investors by promising to invest funds in opportunities that are claimed to generate high returns with little or no risk. In many Ponzi schemes that have been reported, the fraudsters focus on attracting new money to make promised payments to earlier-stage investors to create the false appearance that investors are profiting from a legitimate business.

However, with little or no legitimate earnings, Ponzi schemes require a consistent flow of money from new investors to continue and the schemes tend to collapse when it becomes difficult to recruit new investors or when a large number of investors ask to cash out and the fraudster has spent most of the money.

Ponzis chemes are named after Charles Ponzi, who conned thousands of people into investing in a postage stamp speculation scheme back in the 1920s. At a time when the annual interest rate for bank accounts was five percent, Charles Ponzi promised investors that he could provide a 50% return in just 90 days. Ponzi initially bought a small number of international mail coupons in support of his scheme, but quickly switched to using incoming funds from new investors to pay purported returns to earlier investors.

Nowadays a lot of Ponzi schemes revolve around overseas property investment due to the fact that it is difficult to see evidence of the actually investment from 1000’s of miles away, and many fraudsters either use generic buildings belonging to someone else or artists impressions of soon to be built resorts and hotels in their literature and/or websites.

Even though EcoHouse Group are an award winning global property developer many people are still cautious when they hear that our developments are thousands of miles away in Brazil and the word ecohouse ponzi has been thrown around on a few occasions, although mainly by rival companies or the fraudsters themselves keen to steer potential investors toward their own dodgy scheme.

It’s is for this reason that EcoHouse Group is committed to being totally transparent about their business and investment, we post regular construction updates to our websites and social media pages, have ‘press days’ where local press can come to our developments and see the construction work form themselves and taken photos for their publications, We even hold investor trips when we fly some of our top investors out to our development in Brazil.

In Summary, Even though we are not fond of the terms ‘ecohouse ponzi‘ or ‘ecohouse scam‘, we do know that they will sometimes be put out there, innocently or maliciously and rather than ignore it we welcome any investor or potential investor to speak to us and see for themselves why EcoHouse Group are all set to be one of the largest property developers in brazil and may even the world in years to come.

Minha Casa Minha Vida thriving in the North East Thanks to EcoHouse Brazil

Flag of Sergipe, Brazil (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

EcoHouse Brazil has been in the news quite recently, having been covered in various forums, UK’s home and travel website and even on Yahoo. For those few people who haven’t heard of them, EcoHouse Group are an international property developer with offices in the UK, Brazil, North America, China, Malaysia and Singapore and are world leader in international property investment thanks to their involvement in Minha Casa Minha Vida, The Brazilain government’s social housing programme.

Lot’s of states in the North East of Brazil have praised EcoHouse  for setting up offices and building their first developments in this part of the country, one thankful state is Sergipe, here’s a little more about this tiny north eastern state.

The north eastern state of Sergipe is Brazil’s smallest and is downright tiny compared to some of the others. It is only 22,000 sq km which makes it slightly smaller than the US state of Massachusetts or slightly larger than the Republic of Israel. The population is around 2.1 million, about a quarter of whom live in or around the state capital of Aracaju. Other important towns are the former capital São Cristóvão with 75.000 people, Estancia (62,000), Simão Dias at 40.000 and Laranjeiras which has 27.000.

In historical times this whole part of Brazil was repeatedly struggled over by the Portuguese (and their successors in the Brazilian Empire) and the Dutch and the final victory and domination by the former was by no means a foregone conclusion. Another factor which caused great damage was the constant series of raids by French pirates along the coast. At long last these external threats were overcome.

The coastal area of Sergipe has swamps and sandy beaches as its natural environment while inland, as with other states in this part of the country, Savanna grasslands dominate the landscape. The northern boundary of the state is provided by the São Francisco River and the natural drainage of that part of Sergipe flows into it. On the other hand, the southern half of the state drains directly east towards the Atlantic, through a number of smaller rivers including the Irapiranga and the Real. These tend to be navigable for some of their length but extensive sandbars have prevented the development of good ports on the coast.

The more naturally wooded areas of Sergipe tend to have good levels of rainfall and the soil is therefore very fertile. Agriculture has historically been very important in these areas (notably sugar and cotton) and nowadays it remains vital.  By far the biggest part of the State’s economy rests on the production and processing of sugarcane. The state produces one and a half million tonnes of sugar each year.

The other large crops include Cassava (600,000 tonnes p.a.) and over fourteen million oranges. Growing, harvesting, processing and distributing these products dominate the state’s economy but of course other industries (such as leather and textiles) do exist. A newer factor is the national government’s encouragement to develop a local petroleum industry.

Physical contact with the rest of Brazil ( and the outside world generally) tends to rely on the Airport at Maracaju ( not one of the country’s finest) and the two major highways, the BR-101 and the BR-235.

EcoHouse Group have offices in Brazil, the UK, North America, the Middle East, Singapore, Malaysia and China and have been building Minha Casa Minha Vida homes since 2009, EcoHouse are reducing the housing shortage and giving people the chance to make Secure Investments in Brazil

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The New Brazilian Middle Class: A Better Life, Not An Easy One

English: Maurício de Nassau bridge in Recife, Brazil (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Tens of millions of Brazilians have risen out of poverty over the past decade in one of the world’s great economic success stories. The reasons are many: strong overall economic growth, fueled by exports. A rise in the minimum wage. A more educated workforce. And big government spending programs, including direct payments to extremely poor families.

But becoming middle class in Brazil means a better life, not an easy one. The new, lowest rung of the middle class is what in the U.S. would be called the working poor, with monthly incomes of between $500 and $2,000.

Yet this group is driving consumer spending in Brazil as they cobble together enough money to buy a television, a cell phone or pay for their children to go to a private school.

In the northeastern city of Recife, I stopped in at the Walt Disney School. It has a crenellated roof that makes it look vaguely like a castle. Paintings of Mickey and Minnie Mouse are over the boys’ and girls’ rooms.

The school isn’t sponsored by Disney; the founder is just crazy about Disney characters. The place is bare bones, with paint peeling in the courtyard and no computers in the classrooms.

But it’s a step up for the new middle class.

This is where I meet Susana Raysa de Carvalho, 16, who pushed her parents to send her here.

“I told my parents I wanted to come to this school because I felt the public school was holding me back,” she says. “The teachers were bad. Sometimes they wouldn’t even show up.”

School is the first step, Susana says, because before you can have anything, you have to have a good education.

When she arrives home after school, Susana gets a kiss from her father Roberto. The family also includes Susana’s mother Enilda, and her sister Sandra, 22, who’s trained as a nurse.

A Modest Apartment

They share a tiny apartment in a crumbling, working-class neighborhood. There’s a little kitchen and a small area to eat, with a velvet painting of the Last Supper above the table.

There is no couch or comfortable chairs. One bedroom is for the parents, the other for the two girls to share. Both rooms are just big enough for the beds with a little room to spare.

“It’s small, but it’s cozy,” Roberto says.

Enilda gives me a tour and points proudly to some recent purchases. She explains that last year her husband got a promotion and he used the money to buy all kinds of stuff: kitchen cabinets, a microwave, smart phones for the girls and a flat screen television.

I sit down to talk with Roberto and Enilda de Carvalho about their lives, and how different they are from their parents’ lives.

‘Study, Study, Study’

It’s a typical story for this part of Brazil . Both sets of parents grew up in the countryside. They had to quit school early to start working: at ages 10, 12, 15. One went to work in a fabric factory, another as a mechanic, one was a seamstress and another a farmer.

Roberto’s father grew corn, beans, manioc and vegetables. It was enough to feed the family most of the time, he says. There was no running water or electricity.

When I ask if life back then very hard, Roberto pauses and breaks down in tears. It takes him several minutes to compose himself.

“It was very hard,” he says. “The financial hardship was very great.”

The main lesson he got from his parents, he says, was “Study, study, study.”

So he moved to the big city, Recife, and found a series of better paying jobs. He met and married Enilda and now works maintaining a fleet of trucks.

He supports the family on about $900 a month. The rent sets them back about $130 and Susana’s private school tuition costs about the same.

Technically, this family has joined Brazil’s middle class. They earn enough to be in that lowest rung – it’s called class C. But Roberto doesn’t think they’re middle class. They don’t have enough money to buy a house, or a car, he notes.

“As parents, we always want a better future. If they work hard, they can have a better future than what we had,” Enilda says of her daughters.

Before we leave, I ask what’s the one thing that would make their life better, or easier. And they don’t even have to think about it: their own house.

But Roberto figures the family would need about $40,000 in cash to buy a home.

The older daughter, Sandra, chimes in, “I think that’s our task now. That’s a dream of mine. And I’m definitely going to reach it.”

“She says it so many times,” Elinda adds, “I think it’s going to stick!”

EcoHouse Brazil, Minha Casa Minha Vida and the Mid West

Map locator of Brazil’s Mato Grosso do Sul state (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The North Eastern states of Brazil have already seen numerous high quality Minha Casa Minha Vida developments launch over the past 4 years, mainly thanks to the North Eastern state of Rio Grande do Norte being the South American headquarters of Anglo-Brazilian property Giant EcoHouse Group.

Now other states are hoping that EcoHouse will launch more of their superior quality social housing developments throughout the country and with the Brazilian government expected to extend the minha casa minha vida programme for another few years at least this may now be possible.

EcoHouse Brazil are however tight lipped as to where exactly they will launched their next social housing project but the Mid Western state of Mato Grosso do Sul has been a state that has come up in interviews and press releases on a number of occasions. Here’s a little more information about the recently founded state.

Mato Grosso do Sul (In English this translates as “thick forest of the south”) is an interesting mid-western Brazilian state. It’s unusual because it is so recent, having been founded only in 1977. That was when it was split away from Matto Grosso, its similarly-named and larger neighbour to the north. Mato Grosso do Sul (‘MGS’) is sparsely populated.

It has only two and a half million people, about a third of whom live in the capital, Campo Grande. That’s not very many people for a state with about the same land area as Germany (350,000 sq Km). MGS borders the adjacent countries of Bolivia to the west and also Paraguay to the southwest. This is as well as the other Brazilian states of Mato Grosso, Goias, Minas Gerais, Sao Paolo and Parana which are all next to it

The countryside makes up the vast majority of the land and it’s regarded by the many tourists each year as being both varied and beautiful. For example the popular Pantanal lowlands include forests, savannahs, open pastures and farms. This area is regarded as the largest ‘flooded’ lowland area on earth. In fact the name Pantanal was considered seriously as the name for the new state when it was created 35 years ago, before the decision was made to have a variation of its ‘parent’ state’s name. Another title considered at the time was Maracaju, which refers to the name of the main mountain range which runs from north to south across the territory.

In the so-called ‘Cerrado’ areas, mostly in the south and central regions, most farming people are Brazilians of either Portuguese or German descent, with some ethnic Italians too. Most of Mato Grosso do Sul’s economy is based one way or another on either service industries (46%) or on farming, both large and small scale. This latter mostly consists of crops (soybeans are important) and cattle raising and related occupations. Both of these are helped by the numerous tributaries of the mighty Parana River which criss-cross the state. There’s also an industrial and manufacturing sector which accounts for about one fifth of the state economy. Altogether, though, MGS accounts for only about one per cent of Brazil’s GDP. By the way, the general climate of MGS is mostly humid and warm but occasional variations at both ends of the temperature scale do happen.

The EcoHouse Group have offices in Brazil, the UK, North America, the Middle East, Singapore, malaysia and China. They have been constructing Minha Casa Minha Vida homes since 2009, and are reducing the housing shortage and giving people the chance to make Secure Investments through a secure government run programme.

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