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How is it possible for an entire country to be scammed into collapse. In this episode we'll see how Albania was scammed by a series of pyramid schemes that led to a civil war.
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Producer: Dagogo Altraide
I fell victim to a scam before and learned my lesson! Now I met this nice Nigerian prince online who’ll help me out, so everything will be fine.
😂
Be careful, i heared the nigerian prince got married to the russian model.
/s
Nigeria apparently has a lot of princes, every day I get an email from a different one.
That Nigerian prince is right now helping me also. 😂
It's always so awkward when a family member or friend comes to you with a "business plan" and it turns out to be a pyramid scheme and you gotta explain to them that they have essentially been scammed. Even worse when they don't want to believe you.
Mary Kay Cosmetics, AMWAY, etc.
@@juniorjames7076 Herbalife, and as ColdFusion covered a couple of years ago, OneCoin
At least he shouldn’t put all eggs in that basket.
lmao fr
Remedy. Get them to take you to their recruiter and see all the products they have in their office or shed. Because these people buy products when they are on sale hoping to sell it at full price to your friend. That’s the trick. Also you need a car, storage space and a phone. Then there is the paper work, going to meetings and dropping off.. I worked out that I’d be working for $4 an hour. And that was a long time ago. Worst of all the products are insanely over priced..if your struggling they are the last thing to buy. 🥰
I'm from Croatia and one of these scams also wrecked havoc in my country, fortunately my mother worked in a bank and knew what a pyramid scheme is. Unfortunately my father didn't know and he wanted to "invest" all of family money in one of these scams but he needed my mothers signature. He would try to "convince" her how this is great opportunity but she would not budge. Then he beat her in front of me and my brother but she still would not budge. In the end that money was used for me and my brother to finish college and we are successfully business owners now. The irony was that my father before he died borrowed money from me that I would not have if he "invested" it into one of these scams.
we just came out of one of the worst dictatorial regimes, we were isolated, the people had no information... they used propaganda as if the west was carrying out a marshal plan for the Albania.this was also a work of the enemy agencies, we know very well who performed this masquerade. After a year, Kosovo was attacked and Greece tries to annex the south of Albania...
Well....that's depressing
Good story, a moral learned at the end
Calmest Balkan argument
Kao i Jezda i Defina pocetkom 90 tih ovdje. Iskreno takve stvari nisu mogle bez ucesca vladi.
I remember, I was 9 years old at that time and asked my father where would these firms get the money to give us and others the promised interest. He said that since there are many people who invested on these firms, the money will be generated by other investors who don't want their profit right away. Even at 9 years old I struggled to find the logic in long-term, so I asked again, how would then the profit of these investors generated? Doesn't make sense...He answered after thinking a little bit: "At this point ( he already had invested all our savings ) I don't care what others do. I'm confident I'll get my part of the profit.... Needless to say we lost everything at that time
I feel for you man. My father still tries to buy internet guru get rich quick courses and hes almost 60. We make him cancel every time ofc. Age does not have a monopoly on wisdom. If you did that stuff when you were poor then its out of desperation and its more forgivable. If you get into scams after your well off, its because of greed.
@@theunfinishedbasement It's like some people get blind on too easy to be true regarding these schemes...I don't know where this false hope of being true comes to them, even if they could've been burnt by similar ones. It's a mystery
There were alot of pyramid schemes in the 80s/90s.
I’m sorry to hear bro, I hope you and your family are doing well now.
It's amazing when a 9 yrs old has more financial sense than a full-grown adult. I hope your family was able to recover from this.
This happened in Romania after the fall of communism as well. It was called CARITAS here. It was said that at one point, a third of the country monetary supply was ran through the pyramid scheme. Pretty wild
The 90s must have been horrible in Romania when that happened.
yea, but not to this degree
@@gm2407 They were bad but we in Romania had an advantage, see Romania was in many ways extremely rich under communism. Not necessarily in terms of cash but we had cities recently built we had a lot of working farmland we had natural resources that could bring us back, that could feed the people despite the low money and we also had a lot of industry we eventually cut down and sold to outside powers to prop us up.
@@Akirilus So you had active assets (you were the beneficiaries of recent investment) that didn't need rebuilding from scratch to repair the cash shortage. That is a small mercy as without that it could have been a massively long term problem.
@@gm2407 Yea, as you say. We were the beneficiaries of massive past efforts. Romania ended communism in a turning point, if we kept going we would have entered a bit of a golden age. The moment Romania had a revolution was a strange boiling point. We had been starved for like 10 years and worked to the bone to pay off all external debt and to advance the country. And we decided exactly at the moment where it would have all turned around to benefit us to have a revolution and kill our leaders in what I personally consider was murder as we had a mock trial and then an execution in the same day.
Regarding your sponsor Aura, I am not judging Aura's technical quality per se, but, from a cyber security protection point of view, it is a really bad idea to trust one single company with so much of your sensitive data and, on top of that, use the same company for all your cybersecurity defences. It comes down to this, one product that claims to do everything never is the best in class in every single department and, in (cyber)security you never put all your eggs in a single basket.
Words of wisdom: "If it's advertised on KZhead, it's crap"
It's up to the buyer to research these things. If regulation of ads were too tight, then companies can't get their revenue, and the consumers end up with fewer options.
@@oldmandoinghighkicksonlyin1368 Surely you mean "if it's advertised, it's crap".
Mine claims to do the same
@@bangerxshane2962 these commies don't get it
Albanian here, i was 6 yo and living in my grandma’s place near the center of Tirana (the capital). You can see the building behind the protesters at 11:01 Sali Berisha was the president (amongst others, who endorsed the pyramid schemes) he also sent the troops to quell the rebellion and ordered 2 fighter jets (only ones the country had) to fire on rebelling civilians. The pilot’s took off and sought asylum in other countries. I don’t remember much but i do remember seeing looting everywhere from the balcony of my grandma’s place. In different neighborhoods dads would form groups with any weapon they had to patrol and protect the neighborhood. This one time 2 masked guys with ak47 with black taped magazines (2 together on opposite ends) were stationed right underneath our balcony. My grandpa dropped water with a rope for them from the balcony (3rd floor). They were thanking us and saying they’d keep the building safe. Never knew who they were. In the distance you could see people just running across towards the central avenue with boxes and different looted items. There were stories of someone in a nearby neighborhood commandeering a tank but i never saw it. You could find shells everywhere on the ground and sometimes the shooting would start and never fully stop for an hour or so. You never knew where they were shooting from or to and lots of people had stories of stray bullets getting inside of apartments, we all ducked inside my grandma’s apartment when you could hear the shooting. I remember the word ricochet being used a lot. There were gangs blocking streets, emptying every car passing and stealing anything they could. Sali Berisha was reelected as prime minister this time in 2005 and stayed in power through 2013. The same guy who had vouched for the safety of the pyramid schemes was reelected somehow… Today he’s the leader of the opposition holding control over the Democratic Party. Survived an expulsion and managed to vote out the DP leader and took over the position. He’s still attempting to come back to power and people’s willingness to blindly follow him is so weird.
As someone who is from Greece and grew up in the 2000's i have to say that many of my classmates were recent immigrants from Albania. In the beginning they faced a lot of racism. And i am ashamed that i didn't know about what happened in Albania until now. And i wanted to cry. These people that i have met, have had so much hardship, just to get a low paying job and all that in a neighbouring country. Its very sad. Sending love to all the Albanian sisters and brothers and to our greek-albanian friends that we grew up with in Greece.
Thank you for your words! Albania was simply unlucky. Due to the fall of communism and the pyramid schemes the 90s were complete lost years. If things went differently Albania would almost be on par with Croatia and slightly behind Greece but instead it's 10-20 years behind both.
I tried to warn my aunt and uncle of the obvious scam they are trying to join. They are trying to join a business group but in exchange they'll need to invest roughly 500$ then they'll get a gift and if they invite another member they'll get a commission. I told them that it was an obvious pyramid scheme but they don't believe it and they got into a similar situation twice. They don't believe me since I'm just a teen
I am sorry to hear that. You are very smart. Unfortunately we adults can be really stupid and stubborn 🙄 And some need more than one teaching (if learn at all).
@@leas7830 It's just sometimes they can't see things that are obvious because they're occupied with something else like work, family or whatever that is but they need to be more skeptical on everything specially in this age where misinformation and scams are everywhere. I'm not that smart I'm still trying to learn things and I need adults to help me with that, not that stupid but yes REALLY stubborn sometimes 🤣
damn
@@Monkey_D_Luffy56 tell them to give you $500 instead, and promise them a gift, and a commission of the $500 they get your grandparents to give toyou. Then they'll get it
lol yeah you’re spot on they are about to join another pyramid scheme.
There should be more harsh punishments for these pyramid schemes.
@teflontelefon I mostly agree with your statement and would extend that you need to know economy to differentiate how current economy works, what is healthy economy, and what is an outright scam. I'd say people fall quick to scams depending on the situation not because they are idiots, but because at one point everyone seems to be doing it and it seems to make sense, which is the closest point before a bust. In the past days one person in our neighborhood announced that she is moving out of her apartment with her daughter and pet and wants to get rid of all her furniture and most belongings to start an online business as a coach. (Not the other way around, starting the business first, then deciding if it is sustainable to move forward.) It didn't look to me like an educated decision that was carefully planned, so I tried to tell her that the market for personal trainers is crowded, that her writing looks like toxic positivity (lot's of hearts and addressing readers as "warm hearted persons") and that she has to pay taxes on the donation she is asking for (at a point in time when I hear from my favorite podcasters that they are loosing recurring donations due to the current economy). Why did I write all of this? Because this was her third attempt and the "flyer" she made for the third attempt was more like a short novel. I only had to repeat what was common knowledge from newspaper articles and prime time television from a few years ago (also some some videos on the channel here). And on the other hand I know how well my mothers business went with unambitious attitude many years ago. But I think the damage is done at this point. Sorry for the long example. It's still on my mind. Yes money has to come from somewhere. If there is too much money in the system (don't only look that the poor, look at the rich) then we have inflation or deflation. And in a time of platform economy don't expect to see customers flocking into your business out of thin air or being a sustainable source of income, the platform controls the eyeballs and sets the trends.
There's harsher punishments for ignorance unfortunately
Death penalty if it is done at the state level.
I mean if you fall for a pyramid scheme it’s not like you were bound for some great purpose anyways
@@zzzzz45zzzzz79 Does this apply when state policy is directly involved in and it promotes schemes trough the state bonds along with international partners without opposition? Do you comprihend magnitude of that? Then UN and NATO cavalry arrives. What's your purpose if state tells you to buy eg. war bonds?
I am from Albania. Sadly this socio-economic trauma is deeply rooted into the population perception on money. The general distrusts over economic institutions make us still rely on cash, online payments and such are still seen with skepticism. Cousins and relatives are still better resources to borrow money, loans are secondary, and corruption gets you anywhere. On the other hand tho, it is fascinating to see how fast things are moving, the shift in the economy is very visible these last 10 - 15 years. Tourism is booming and exports are seeing new fronts, as it goes with every population, hard work pays off, mistakes make you learn. Been a fan of this channel since early days, so much so it inspired me to create my own, seeing my countries name on a thumbnail sure did give me a goose bump or two! Keep the great work up!
They are right. Cash is king.
@@arnowisp6244 Even the population of Germany, the richest nation in the EU agrees
Cash is king!
Finally, all that loot from Greece paid dividents.
There is literally nothing wrong with what you said except "corruption gets you anywhere" seems like the Albanians learned their lessons.
Never thought I would see a (sad) piece of my country's history appear in an episode of one of my favorite youtube channels. Thank you!
after the collapse of the communist government. everyone in the eastern bloc is taking a drug called free market capitalism. up to an overdose. they drink it until they forget the reason communism existed because of free market without government regulation could be more dangerous because no one will be held responsible for the chaos that results from this overdose
Bro, you been living under a rock, Albania is a shithole
I l0v3e albania, wonder why turks and greeks put extra N to the country name of 🇦🇱. I wouldn't put it here because yt will delete it 😴🙄
@@Agent-ie3uv im greek and have no idea what u mean
Thank God I'm not born albanian, it's honestly shameful being albanian.
It often feels like it’s easy to wipe out a country’s economy but painstakingly hard to grow it back. Similar to a single person gaining or losing weight.
yes it's a challenge to maintain this mass. i keep becoming skinny again
Takes days to create a good concrete wall. Takes seconds for a bomb to destroy it.... looking back at this reply I also thought: It takes days to create the bomb too. Takes months to create the tools to create concrete and tools to create bombs. Takes months to find the materials of the proper amount of cement to create concrete, and the TNT for bombs to blow the concrete wall. It just seems that destroying is faster than building, but maybe that's not always the case. In a way, the destruction had been constructed from the start, we just didn't see it.
Took 40 years for Hoxha to improve it and then after death no prominent leader took the lead instead they fell in the trap of capitalism. I know it's not capitalism's fault, however cunning people always exist everywhere. It doesn't matter what ideology one has, left or right, what matter deeply to us people is personal satisfaction of being rich and socially achieving top hierarchy. These things are bound to happen. Can we elaborate and solve this problem in society? I believe we as a species need one major revolution in the context of evolution. We need to evolve morally.
Most of the economy is based in Ponzi schemes. We were unlucky cause the mastermind behind it was the head of the country. People got cheated in such way.
@@turboed1337 i wouldn't say they fell in the trap of capitalism, I'd call it dor what it was, they were criminals that took advantage of people's ignorance and trust.
I'm an Italian born in the 90s and my best friend is Albanian, he come to Italy as kid and I've been there plenty of times (Mostly up to Shkodra). I consider Albania my second home and seeing what this was it's pure pain for me. Now Albania is economically growing up very fast, hopefully making normal people a bit more rich rather than a small elite. I always hope the best for our brothers!
I am from Albania and I want to say thank you. I love your book New Thinking. You are a great intellectual and content creator. Thank you.
I'm from Albania 🇦🇱 thank you so much for the amazing detailed video Cold Fusion TV, big fan of your channel ❤️. This was a devastating event for Albania. I was 8 years old and my sister was 11 when the civil war happened. You could hear every 10 minutes an ak-47 unloading his magazine, seeing tracing bullets up in the sky. I remembered how we hide every day behind the walls of the house not to get killed by random bullets flying everywhere, even peaking on the windows was dangerous for months isolated. Hopefully, the whole world understands the pain and devastation we faced as a country and why persists even to this day.
Did people hide in the bunkers?
@@GuinessOriginal probably the poor or those fighting
The Police and Military Armouries had been emptied, but all the blasting off into the air exhausted the ammunition and things became more stable. Much went to Kosovo, where a Muslim resistance to the Serbian Catholic Orthodox ended up with a precedent in War Crimes trials. Serbia is still being encouraged by Russia to believe that it has a historical claim over the rest of the former Yugoslavia, but that's going to get nowhere now a couple of States are now in Europe. In the longer term, one might see this as a continuation of the Balkan issues of c1430, and the original land-holdings of the eastern end of the Holy Roman Empire coming to grips with the Ottoman Turks.
@@JelMain Fortunately , politicians do not always manage to manipulate everyone , I am eternally grateful to the Kosovar Albanians who warned my father's family in kosovo at the onset of ww2, about Skenderberg divisions (albanians allied with Germany in WW2) that were coming in to ethnically cleanse the whole village. There's plenty of evidence of Albanian empire ambitions - see the 'Greater Albania' flag that claims the Presevo Valley in Serbia, Macedonian, Greek and Montenegrian territories as their own. Kosovo is not enough. It keeps popping up at football games and has been publicly endorsed by personalities such as Dua Lipa. No other countries in that region has such dangerous ambitions combined with a largely tribalistic population that blindly follows their leaders. Not to mention was Kosovo has become, a hub of human and drug trafficking.
The sad thing is that the bastards that let this happen ,they are still free living the life .
The bastards are the idiots who fall for scams.
Crime does pay
Strong thrive by fucking the weak. That's the way of the world. All we can do is stay vigilant and try to prevent shit as much as we can
Now its cryptobros and rug-pulling finfluencers. I hope Sam Bankman-Fried gets 1,000 years in jail, followed by that slimey-looking g/f of his as well as Jake/Logan Paul, then every CEO that's ever faced a government fine. Then, in a wave of anti-corruption, the whole planet sheds the 1% and we enter Star Trek times.
😐😐😐😐
Thanks again for another great video Dagogo! Being scammed can happen so quickly if you're not aware of it... After I left uni, I have been approached by a tutor/mentor that I held in high esteem. I just started my career and as every self-employed person knows, money/cash flow is a big stress factor at the beginning. I suppose he thought I might fall victim to the pyramid scheme he was involved in, in order to be able to stay afloat financially. Fortunately, I had already been exposed to this subject through your videos among others and I shut him down immediately. It still affects me to this day as I now struggle to fully trust people. All of that to say, be mindful of "too good to be true" propositions, even (and I would argue, especially!) made by people close to you, that you implicitly trust.
Another superb video. Well-produced and highly informative!
I'm from Southern California, but was living in Northern Italy near Aviano Air Force Base in 1996 and 97'. Unbelievably, there was no news of what was going on in Albania. Once back in America, needless to say, not a shred of news coverage. The exact same MLM schemes happened in Russia and Romania after the fall of the Berlin Wall. No consequence to white-collar crime. Just look at the plush lifestyle that FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried & his parents enjoy in Palo Alto, California.
European news media was likely focused on what was happening in ex-Yugoslavia, and American news media is known for its lackluster foreign coverage.
SBF had a luxury life in the Bahamas where he hoped the law wouldn't touch him.
Exactly the same situation in Bulgaria, too in the '90s...
_"Once back in America, needless to say, not a shred of news coverage."_ Yes there was. I remember it. Granted, I lived in Boston where there was a relatively high number of Albanian immigrants, but it was on the national news as well.
In Russia dude behind the scheme served time in prison.
Seeing those men and women crying over their loses is heartbreaking.
I know, it really hurt me.
Most of the footage of crying people is actually taken from war in Kosovo
@@neperqiell3496 exactly ! It’s from the war. People fall for shit so fast without doing their research 🤦🏽♀️
Scammers should get the 💀penalty
He is misrepresenting footage. This is from serbian atrocities.
I was in the US Peace Corps in Albania right as these scams were starting. I warned several students off them. I hope they listened. One of my former colleagues got caught up in them, though.
Dagogo you are awsome man, you are one of my favorite youtubers... and now you deal with historic events in Eastern Europe... even better. Greetings from Romania! 🇷🇴
I had no idea about any of this. Pretty crazy it happened so recently. Thanks for sharing.
I'm Italian and I remember the images on the news when I was a child of the landing of 20,000 Albanians in Bari in '91, an impressive and heartbreaking thing, even President Berlusconi (yes I know, he's an asshole) started crying
Did he really cry?
@@dernamenlose4950 Surprisingly, yes. You can still find videos online.
@@scottishfold7929 I was searching but didn‘t find a video about it
Grazie
grazie mille per tuo komento. Era molto dificile dopo il comunismo in Albania. La gente aveva perso la speranza
I was last year with my family on holiday in Albania And it's admirable how much progress has been made in just so few years. We had a great time and we will definitely go again❤
The sad thing is that those who were tasked with ensuring this would never happen either profited handsomely from the Scheme or just turned a blind eye. 😢
I am albanian and I have been watching your video for years and i gotta say i was really surprised seeing this video on your channel. 100% of the facts were on point and explained really well the situation during the years of 1990 - 2000. Truly a devestating time but we have improved a lot and things are so much different now. Thinking back on that time it really sounds crazy and unbeliavable.
Having been alive, but youngish when this happened, it's one of the few things I've never been made aware of on the Internet. Thank you for making this. I truly appreciate what you make and your channel.
Thank you for this timely tale.
Great video man,keep at it.
I only knew about this moment in Albanian history thanks to your content because it's been overshadowed by the Yugoslav Wars and the Kosovo War Thanks for helping us know about historical moments that weren't mentioned often if at all
These events are connected, Albania as an ex communist country was full of arms which were unofficially sold or donated to Kosovo Army
after the collapse of the communist government. everyone in the eastern bloc is taking a drug called free market capitalism. up to an overdose. they drink it until they forget the reason communism existed because of free market without government regulation could be more dangerous because no one will be held responsible for the chaos that results from this overdose
@@mind.tutorial Terrorists built terrorists...that's the way :D
@@boris035..4 Found the Serbian nationalist (in a homeless shelter in Hamburg)
@@joaopk6263 So?
I am Albanian, 38 years old, I lived through this and what I can say is this: The sad element in all this is not the existence nor even the implementation of the pyramid schemes per se as they are just one of the many faces of corruption (especially in post-communist states) which is in itself a human condition, thus it has always existed in various economic forms and will always exist, what is the most absurd part in all of this is the fact that now after all these years, 26 years, in fact, those who were then in power in the government and gave free rein to the pyramid schemes, and who were then overthrown by the people, are now still in fact in power again, they never left, it has just been a vicious cycle, a closed loop where individuals that yesterday were considered murderers are now still an active part of the system, the change has not been progressive only cyclical. This is the sad reality of post-communist states passing into capitalism but not through a systematic implementation of reform but thrown into it. This happened in Russia, Romania, etc everywhere where Communism existed for more than half a century.
@Let's talk on👉@OfficialColdFusionTV Thx for the consideration dear bot, I hope that especially after watching this video, it would make total sense for you to have some altruistically invaluable cryptocurrency investing advice for me.
its same everywhere, you just think its only where you live
I don't blame communism but capitalism. Capitalism if not checked well is subject to exploitation and abuse by a few to steal from others in a more subtle way
@@i1bikeit's not the same. The closed loop the guy mentioned is the reason why the economy is stagnant. It's been 30 years and despite some infrastructure development, people still struggling to raise a family, migration never ends, population is shrinking and gdp barely increases from year to year... no bro it's not everywhere like this
@@georgioskanderbeg it is
that was really eye opening video thank you channel owner 👍👍👍👍
Great stuff as always
As a Greek, I know from fellow Albanians that Hoxha is pronounced as Hoja. Just thought it should be mentioned
Always doubt hojas, they are never good news...
All misspellings of Enver Hoxha, are welcomed in Albania 😀.
I always think it's a matter of courtesy and respect, when you're talking about foreign countries and will have to say foreign names, to search for the correct pronunciation and at least try to approximate it the best you can. It's so easy these days with the Internet. I'd certainly be unable to do that with Southern African languages like Zulu or Xhosa, with those impossible clicking sounds with the throat that our brains never learned how to do, Caucasian languages like Georgian or Chechen, with those (literally!) dozens of strange (to our ears) consonants, or tonal East Asian languages like Mandarin and Thai, with those subtle tones to which we speakers of Western languages are mostly deaf but make a lot of difference in meaning. But I don't think it would be absolutely impossible to do with any European language, even the difficult non-Indo-European ones like Hungarian or Finnish. They'd just require a few more rehearsals. I think that failing to try at least a heavily accented approximation is rude and inconsiderate with the people from that country.
after the collapse of the communist government. everyone in the eastern bloc is taking a drug called free market capitalism. up to an overdose. they drink it until they forget the reason communism existed because of free market without government regulation could be more dangerous because no one will be held responsible for the chaos that results from this overdose
Are greeks and albanians close culture wise?
You have no idea how excited I was to see this video, knowing the backstory and seeing who produced it, thank you !!
after the collapse of the communist government. everyone in the eastern bloc is taking a drug called free market capitalism. up to an overdose. they drink it until they forget the reason communism existed because of free market without government regulation could be more dangerous because no one will be held responsible for the chaos that results from this overdose
Impressive, thanks for the knowledge
ColdFusion being unbiased, informative, entertaining on top of soothing, relaxed music and narration is also my guilty form of great ASMR.
A lot of the footage in this video isn’t even from Albania or anything to do with banking scams. The footage is from the war in Kosovo.
Same thing happened in Russia during the 90s, ours was MMM, they had to arrest the directors of it because the people stormed their office and wanted to tear them apart limb from limb.
Thanks for making the video and educating the World about what happened to us, I left Albania when I was just 13 years old during the civil war in 1997, and the video is entirely accurate. We are making progress since but still lot of work remains to be done.
after the collapse of the communist government. everyone in the eastern bloc is taking a drug called free market capitalism. up to an overdose. they drink it until they forget the reason communism existed because of free market without government regulation could be more dangerous because no one will be held responsible for the chaos that results from this overdose
I was in the Greek Army when this happened. We were so bored keeping records on explosions and shots at the border
@@JKARMIS1 do you realize how cruel is what you just said? People were dying and you were bored, because you had to keep a record of something...
Albania did not have a civil war in 1997
@@froglifes6829 it did though look it up
I think that we had same scheme in Serbia too. I was young at the time but I remember my relatives, who worked abroad, talking that they lost all their savings to some banks or coorporations.
Never heard about this but now I know I’m gonna spend the rest of the day watch videos on Albania’s history like… this is actually crazy I need to know more like how did they overcome all this.. truly amazing I’m so intrigued fr
Since you covered our neighbour's story I hope you cover the 1999 Greek Stock Market crash where most of the population lost everything it got. Or the catastrophic Olympic Games of 2004 in athens, when we spent more than we got on infastructure that went to waste after the games.
1999 Greek stock market crash?? I thought it was in 2008...
@@erjontoliqi4228 2008 was greek debt crisis
The Greeks are also good at shooting themselves in the foot. Maybe it’s a Balkan thing.
Had a restaurant on a Greek island and I remember that in 98 we were selling about 500 kilos of lobster pasta and 99 we sold only 70 kilos. We called it down lobster.
Wow... I never knew this about Greece... so therefore..... it makes sense that..... a lot of Greeks came to the UK and they went to uni here at that time. To stay safe before later going back to equalise things.
I've watched a ridiculous amount of your videos over the years. Your videos are visually interesting and informationally rich. Thanks for the content!
ColdFusion fiancial videos are staggeringly solid... My man does not miss...
My love and support to the people of Albania
thanks
Okay, I saw the thumbnail and thought it read, "The fall of Alabama", and as that's where I live, I was dying laughing 😂. "Where to start?" was my next thought, lol.
What's happening in Alabama?
Alabama already fell and dusted...
You can only get such refreshing stories communicated simply in THIS CHANNEL. Very hard to find a substitute. Thanks again man.
I am waiting for you to make a video about the Banks ( SVB etc) situation because you explain things so I can understand! Please do it!
I remember this when I was just a small child. Thanks for covering this story
It's amazing to see how much information is presented in this. I'd say this is a good analysis overall.
It's just wikipedia into speech
@@joankamberaj Wikipedia into speech with good visuals and a nice voice narrating it like a bot still could not. Im glad I stumpled upon this piece of history through his channel. I dont know if I would have done that on wiki some day.
Love the historical content mate, honestly didn’t know much about this before watching. Keep up the great work Dagogo : ) 🖤
Can’t wait for the SVB and Co. Video. Please include CS implications and risks
It's strange that this happened well within my lifetime but I knew nothing about it. Then suddenly in the past week I've had three KZhead videos about it!
Thank you for this video, until now I wasn't aware of the struggles people of Albania had to go through.
Didn't know know about this and I'm from a neighbor country close to Albania. Just goes to show how media tries to segregate us by not spreading the news. Love from Serbia 🇷🇸
Same here
Albania and Serbia are not neighbours
@@Dhimo758 The guy tries to extend an olive branch and you do this...
Remember that Serbia considers Kosovo as part of their country, so Serbians consider Albania to be a neighboring country
@@Dhimo758 I also said "close to Albania" so take that as you want. Idk if you are stupid or just trying to be hateful.
Scam and fraud should be penalised much harder then it is. I hate thieves, if only someone knew how much.
My university thesis was about this devastating event of my country…how can these CRIMINALS that robbed an entire nation sleep at night is beyond my comprehension 🤷🏻♀️
There is a really good and interesting book telling all this history of Albania from the eyes of a growing up child/teenager. It's called "Free" by Lea Ypi, who also later emigrated from Albania and is now a Professor at LSE.. I read it when visiting Albania, which was one of the most beautiful countries I've ever visited...
Incredibly well done, as usual. Thanks Dagogo. Love from BC, Canada.
very interesting video! good job sir
Good to hear things are turning around
I completely forgot you were on Nebula. I would never have imagined that a whole country's financial system could collapse because of pyramid schemes. This was an eye-opener.
I feel like everyone gets scammed at least once in their life before they learn the lesson. The trick is don't ever be too greedy and if it sounds too good to be true, it most likely is.
idk but actually what if it isn't?... there are rare cases where it is actually that good
@@kindklan8020 Sure there are times when you can't believe what you are getting away with but this leads to insatiable greed -I've been there. Greed then becomes the undoing of all your hard work and luck.
I grew up playing RuneScape. I can see scams coming from a mile away
I know it ain’t as big as many but it hurt enough for me to learn, I was a kid who got a beautiful hat on a MMORPG it didn’t even gave you any special stats just kinda uncommon and beautiful looking, a guy came and swore he would upgrade it, that he already activated something expensive and promised he wouldn’t scam me, the second I gave it to him to upgrade it he just logged off, I was devastated, it was a cheap lesson monetarily speaking but a bitter taste to reality
@@tristangabrielo Haha same thing happened to me on Diablo II when I was a kid, lost my best sword!
Great video! When can we expect a video of SVB?
Thank you, Dagogo.
When I see a Coldfusion upload I drop everything and watch. Cheers!
Such a sad story I had never heard. Thank you. It sounds like they are on a good path now.
My company decided fo invest in Albania for rice cultivation. The government supported in all aspects and hired us the land. We borught lots of machinery, management who knows rice cultivation and hired local manpower for the purpose. Our goal was to produce 5.000 tons of rice for the first year and all was planned and provided accordingly. In the middle of season, most of the workers left the job with all kind of reasons they have created. Almost all of local people around does not have any work to support themselves. People who left the job requested compensation of 10 times their salaries by threatining us with killing as all came with guns. Equipment began to dissappear at nights due to theft. Summary: This journey ended in the first year, ALL of our equipment (rice machinery, tractors, trucks, even our cars were STOLEN except one harvester which we kept in a friend's warehouse. Despite our efforts we only produced 20 (twenty) tons of rice which were taken by local workers as they called "compensation of their efforts". Our total loss was about 2 million dollars. Thank god we returned alive by the help of a few honest Albanian friends.
wow. just wow.
yes, albania was always a tough hood
How the heck did nobody in the entire country recognize a pyramid scheme?
You know it's going to be a good weekend when Cold Fusion uploads on a Friday
This was fascinating. I had no idea what triggered the issues in Albania. Amazing work as always.
Bruh we just watched the 16th largest bank in our own country collapse basically because of its exposure to dog coin scammers. So lots of lessons to learn here people….
I went to Albania just for an adventure, got locked down for covid, then as things loosened up went wandering around. Its a very beautiful country, great food, great beer and Rakia!, all very cheap, and the history, all the ancient castles and such, what a great place to explore, but the biggest thing was the people, so nice, old world hospitality! Its an honor to them that you would come visit! Loved the place, I would walk into a little tavern, and they would all ask me where I was from, soon, the Rakia was slinging back and forth, and I had a room full of new buddies. Tourism has a bright future there, Hope they do well, they are so nice.
All of eastern europe is cheap if you come from the west. It's not cheap just for those that actually live here
I'm surprised that Albanians drink beer and rakija since most are Muslims.
@@ZlatnoPeroTV i was also surprised, but they do like to have a drink, no issues with that as far as i could tell. Quite friendly and nice people, the food was great, always lots of olives and cheese, and homemade bread, its loaded with good scenery too
@@ZlatnoPeroTV the majority being muslim is such a myth. Yesif you ask me i am muslim as my father is but i drink alcohol, ear port do haram. One thing about Albania is that religion didn't stick as much after it had been outlawed so you see people calling themselves Muslim but not practicing the religion. And then comes the good part no one really speaks about religion so not very much hate crimes such as you see on the west.
@brianshook3289 i'm from kosovo, glad to know you enjoyed your experience!
these MLM schemes were rampant in my India too, also, they were during the 1990s, market liberalisation took place right at that time. Market policy change and Fraud were happening all around the world at the same time. Why..?? How..?? Peculiar, isn't it....
You know the situation is grim and desperate when you see those men crying loud on Roads.
That is from serbian atrocities. He used misleading footage.
The video footage isn’t even from Albania, it’s from the war in Kosovo
Love you're show, keep up the great work.
Hey, great video, as always. If I may make a suggestion for a topic. Could you talk about the BRICS nations and their plan to create a new currency to rival the dollar? Thanks alot, great work.
The depths of greed regardless of consequences to others is disgusting. 😡
The name of the dictator is not pronounced Hoksa, it is actually pronounced Hoja, and the is pronnounced as the letter "J" in English same way as you would pronounced Jay or Jeremy
Hojya?
It's actually pronounce "Asshat"
Thank you. Absolutely painful hearing the gross mispronunciation in this video
@@Skroorsk damn, I feel bad for you Not really.
@@Skroorsk poor baby.
Ugh this is heart wrenching. I wanted to shut it off quite afew times but I made it to the end, it's important to see as gross as it is. Kudos to you for showing it sir.
Welcome to Bali....Island of the Scammers Visitors beware
I spent a month in Albania in the summer of 2021. Absolutely beautiful country and lovely people but you can see the scars from decades of hardship. Shout out to all the Albanians
Nice summary. I was there during this period and it was absolutely crazy, both in the run up to the collapse (everyone and their brother had invested in the schemes) and afterwards..
Great content and I never get tired of Dagogo's sublime, perfect voice for narration!
This voice can be used to narrate the most boring history book to make it worthwhile.
I had a friend from Albania, and he said that crime destroyed the country. Crime always destroys countries and prosperity.
Please make a video on Silicon valley bank collapse (the 2nd largest bank in the US) and the effects it will have now @ColdFusion
Can you make a video about Silicon Valley Bank? It has been on the news after its stock felt 60% yesterday (03/09/2023).
On it
The topic presented in this video was one that was previously unknown to me -- thanks Dagogo, it was an interesting dive into the past.
Albania was not in the Soviet Union.
@@RLelling thanks, my mistake - have corrected it now
Seeing all those men and women crying is so heartbreaking. They look so crestfallen and devastated.
Thanks for the video. Awaiting to hear story of how SVB collapsed from you soon 😊
These events will be forever one of the darkest times for our country. Like always great analysis and content.
It won’t be among the darkest for long if you don’t keep out Iranian-educated Imams
Thank you for this video Dagogo!! Unfortunately there is still a lot of corruption and poverty in Albania, no matter which party has ruled since the civil war. I was born in 1996 and luckily my dad took me and my sister in1999 in Greece and had a descent life there.
But you only have 2 subs
@Zaydan Alfariz you need to elaborate more on that
In Australia all the scammers seem to be from India and sometimes even from legitimate call centres that do scams on the side. I personally get several calls per week from these call centres and they are repeatedly exposed by online vigilantes because they operate with impunity due to Indian authorities protecting their activities and the Australian government doing absolutely nothing about it. The people they target are older Australians who often have lost their entire life savings.
Not only people from India, believe me. But they are the ones targeted, thank goodness, by those on-line vigilantes (whose work is FASCINATING). It's "who speaks Anglo"-thing, as well as to whom your tech etc. people usually out-source. In Sweden, we have to breed our own particular tribes of scammers, as old people only trust Swedish-speakers and no phone support is out-sourced to India...
My dad was one of folks that didn’t believe in this. He put in 30000 Lek (~USD$300) and got back double. They would give smaller amounts back quicker to keep the illusion up. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case for some of our relatives.
Always love your stuff, Dagogo! Question: Is a pyramid scheme the same thing as a Ponzi scheme? Thanks for another great video!
Yes, same thing. In Europe they‘re called pyramid schemes, in the US the name Ponzi stuck.
In a Ponzi scheme, the operator promises investments with high returns and little to no risk. The operator pays out high returns to the early investors by using a portion of the money of later investors. Eventually there are too many old investors expecting high returns and too few new investors to pay those returns, so the scheme collapses. In a pyramid scheme, the operator requires that new individuals who wish to join make a payment. In exchange, the operator promises its new members a share of the money taken from every additional member that they recruit and all of those below them in the pyramid. Thus there is a strong incentive to recruit new members, and each new level of the pyramid tends to be larger than the one before it. Those higher up in the pyramid receive percentages of those below them in the pyramid, but must also pay a percentage of their takes to the person who recruited them. The operator and those at the top of the pyramid can become very rich. As it becomes increasingly difficult to recruit new members, those near the bottom of the pyramid, who far outnumber those at the top, will only lose money. There are many variations of pyramid schemes, but they all have an emphasis on each new member recruiting new subordinates and profiting from the each person below them in the scheme. In contrast, Ponzi schemes do not require existing investors to recruit new investors and they are not promised a portion of the new investors' returns. Pyramid schemes often have no actual product to sell, or the product is less important to profits than the recruitment of new participants. Many legal businesses (e.g., Amway, Mary Kay Cosmetics, Tupperware) employ a multi-level marketing (MLM) or pyramid sales strategy. Salespeople may recruit new salespersons and become managers. As managers they retain a portion of the commissions of each salesperson underneath them in the pyramid, but they must pay a percentage of their earnings to their own manager. The people high up in the pyramid can become very rich. However at least 99% of people who join MLM companies lose money, so they are prohibited or highly regulated in some jurisdictions.
ColdFusion your game in videos lately is out of this world! Just brilliant!
So you accusing him being an alien 🤨
I visited Albania and had a great traveller experience in the early 90s and so watched in horror as this all unfolded. The British comedian Norman Wisdom was hugely popular there - Enver Hodxha loved him and his Pitkin films were some of the very few outside films shown. Many tens of thousands turned up to see him when he visited.
When you make the video on SVVB, probably it will be a long one, taking into consideration that after it collapse, other regional bank have collapse such as Signature bank, and who knows. The stocks from Bank of Hawaii have been halted, as well as First Republic bank from San Francisco.