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"Perpetual Motion DeLorean" Scammers Face $26M Judgment
An anonymous reader writes "Back in 2002, we discussed a story about the so-called 'Perpetual Motion DeLorean,' which could 'supposedly go "hundreds of miles" at speeds over 100MPH without stopping to recharge.' More than seven years later, the final shoe has dropped on this saga, with a $26 million judgment against Carl Tilley and his wife, who propagated this scam that ran for several years. Probably the height of its audacity was when Tilley told his shareholders in May of 2002 that GE had offered $2 billion 'sight unseen' to buy out the technology."
Err, if you get right down to the bottom of it, this is in fact the core principle of Capitalism, i.e. impoverishment of "fools" (i.e. people unable or unwilling to adjust to become sufficiently effective savages towards all around them) and rewarding of "smart" people (i.e. those who are all too willing to take advantage of everyone else around them) by whatever means they can get away with. The difference between a "criminal" and a "successful businessman" is largely a very subjective one.
For example, while most "legitimate" businesses produce a product, say a car, they also engage in advantage taking of all around them in order to survive, they pay as little as they can get away with to their employees, they studiously ignore social and environmental impact of their products, they go to extreme measures to "manage cost versus risk" by deliberately exposing their dupes ... I mean "customers" to possibility of flaming death in order to increase loot etc and so on.