7.2 Fast Money Schemes and Pentecostal Christianity in Papua New Guinea

The authors of this week's article note from the outset that: "[Their] research into Melanesian 'fast money shcemes' (Ponzi of pyramid scams) explores questions of social and economic change in relation to Christianity." Discuss the findings and examples of this research as pertains to changes in forms in Christianity in Papua New Guinea.

Verdery - Virtue, Fortune, and Faith

How did changes in the morality of money in postsocialist Romania affect the rise of the pyramid scheme, Caritas? What does Verdery tell us about the religious ethos that also accompanied these shcemes?

6.2 Occult Economies (2)

After reading this article, reflect on the following statement: "I am saying we should contextualize Madoff as an effect of finance capital, rather than a bad apple, just as I am trying to suggest that el millionario's scheme "worked" by mixing development culture with "traditional" beliefs in ways that morphed human connections ("social capital") into money. In so doing I hope to transform the objects of the ugly stereotype of the gullible Maya (or the greedy Jew) into rational moral actors." (p. 216)

6.1 Occult Economies

What, according to Comaroff and Comaroff, is the connection between the rise of so-called "occult economies" in post-apartheid South Africa and the expansion of a global economic regime of neoliberal markets?

5.2 The Magic of the Pyramids

How does the discourses of gender and ethnicity play out in the rise and fall of the pyramid schemes in postsocialist Albania?

Lady Credit

The comparison of credit to a woman in this sense is quite interesting, facetious, and even charismatic despite its bitter nature. This term's origin came into play when people were engaging in financial speculation. In times of mass trust, there would be a bubble formed by hidden financial risk in banks, which led to economic fall outs. In general the notion of this re occurring all through history seems nonsensical, but when lady credit is offering you everything you could ask for, you'd probably say yes and buy into a mass trust scheme. This is where the wifelike aspect of lady credit is personified. However, no man should be foolish enough to trust the bank or a rising stock price to fuel his financial success (let alone develop the same type of relationship and trust in his money that he would have for a wife) but that's unfortunately what many people do. This is where we are introduced to the "prostitute" side of lady credit, where she leaves men that were once well off out in the cold with nothing as she, herself crashes to pieces. The main point being is that lady credit is the personification of a lustful attitude toward money in any form because this type of energy is what destroys homes and families.

4.2 The passions and discipline of economic men

How does Zaloom describe the behavior or traders in the pits? How does she describe the discipline of their trade? More generally, how does Zaloom do an ethnography of financial markets?