NEW MONEY FOR OLD PONZI

The fellow's name is Tom Petters. He's 51 and currently sitting in a Minnesota jail, after being accused of creating a Ponzi worthy of Mr. Ponzi himself.

Where as the original Mr. P duped investors by claiming to sell international postal coupons, this Mr. P is charged with multiple counts of fraud for duping investors in a scheme to sell surplus DVD players and flat screen TVs to big box stores, like WalMart.

According to prosecutors, Petters solicited loans, offering sky-high interest rates, so that he could supposedly buy the surplus merchandise. He claimed he was moving those goods into the major stores to finance the interest rates he was paying.

His run in with the law began when someone found out that, instead of buying electronics goods and selling them, he was simply using investors' money to finance his own lifestyle. Apparently the sums involved are now into the tens of billions --- this is Madoff and Stanford territory --- which he spent on several homes, expensive cars and boats, plus the purchase of companies, including Sun Country Airlines and Polaroid.