Episode 12 - Pyramid Schemes and the collapse of Albania

<p>In the 1991, the nation of Albania was liberated from 50 years of hard-line Communism led by Enver Hoxha. &nbsp;Even by Soviet and Eastern European standards, the system of Communism imposed on Albania in 1944 was cruel and rigid. &nbsp;From 1944 until 1991, Albania was, in many ways, completely closed off from the rest of the world. &nbsp;When Communism fell, the country opened up to market reforms. &nbsp;Unfortunately, this also led to a proliferation of criminal gangs who took advantage of the confusion to set up "investment funds" that were nothing more than Pyramid or Ponzi schemes. &nbsp;Thousands of people lost money in these schemes which led to the collapse of the government and a brief civil war. &nbsp;We explore in this episode how pyramid schemes led to the collapse of an entire government. &nbsp;</p> <p><br></p> <p><strong>Introduction and exit music: Dark Hallway (clean) Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/</strong></p> --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/gene-tausk/message