If this “charity” founded in 2000 got 1% interest each month and spent it all each year at the end of the year, it got more than its money back after 8 years.
So it spent all its original investment.
If this was a true Ponzi scheme which did no investing at all, the charity got more than its fair share. So what is Kos complaining about?

It is the poor schmucks who paid income tax on the fake earnings who took a real bath. If the supposed income rate per month were 1.5% and the money was left in, it quadrupled in value after 8 years.

Someone paying income tax on the fake earnings shelled out as much as his original investment in taxes over the years. However, he can get back the taxes paid in 2005-7 by filing an amended return, and won’t have to pay for 2008. This will give him back more than half of the initial investment. Is that so terrible?

The notion that what you lose is the amount some crook promises you that you don’t get is fun for headlines but, hey, I’ve lost billions this way. I get on the average of three emails a day saying I have won at least a million dollars in a lottery I never entered, or in some obscure inheritance from Africa, or some other ridiculous scam. If I add the amounts I should get from these, if they were true it would come to billions. So have i lost billions in capital from these situations? I have lost billions that were promised me that I will never collect.

OK so they are obvious frauds. So I have really lost only my original investment in these things, which is zero.

Why don’t we apply the same logic to this fraud? Then it would dwindle to insignificance to tax paying individuals (most probably losing at most half their initial investments considering their tax recoveries.) and in any case losing far far less than 50 billion in all. And non taxpayers like charities probably spent almost as much or perhaps more than their initial investments.

OK someone who put all their money in this fraud in 2008 or 2007 really got screwed. How many of these were there?