Van Rossem studied
economics at the
Ghent University in 1963–67. With his final term paper
De omloopsnelheid van het geld : theoretische begripsbenadering en praktische toepassing in België (English:
The velocity of money: Theoretical approach to understanding and practical applications in Belgium) he won the International Scholarship of Flanders-prize and was able to study two years of
econometrics under Nobel Prize winner
Lawrence Klein at the
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. an investment company that could offer apparently endless returns. His customers included the moneyed of Europe, including the
Belgian royal family. Van Rossem also claimed that he had developed a model that could predict the stock market and beat the
capitalist system. He invested for the very wealthy and accumulated 860 million dollars for himself. At his most successful, Van Rossem owned a
yacht,
The Destiny, 108
Ferraris and two
Falcon 900 aircraft. He also printed false shares.
Formula One Van Rossem
sponsored and later became the majority owner of a
Formula One team in 1989,
Moneytron Onyx, which placed 10th of the 21 teams. The biggest success he achieved with his team was third place at the
1989 Portuguese Grand Prix with driver
Stefan Johansson. The team signed an agreement with Porsche to use the V12 that Footwork then went on to use. However the deal was cancelled when Van Rossem announced the deal on Belgian television prior to the initial announcement. That night he made the news again, as he'd driven his Porsche to town square and set fire to it.
ROSSEM In 1991, Van Rossem founded his own
libertarian protest party
ROSSEM, according to many, to gain political immunity, because of his problems with the Belgian courts. The name of the party stood for ‘Radicale Omvormers en Sociale Strijders voor een Eerlijker Maatschappij’ ('Radical Reformers and Social Warriors for a Fairer Society'). Under the slogans ‘Geen gezwijn, stem libertijn’ ('No nonsense, vote libertine') & 'Geen gezeik iedereen Rijk' ('No whining, everybody rich'), ROSSEM got 3.2% of the votes, or 3 seats in the
Belgian Federal Parliament in the Parliamentary elections of 24 November 1991. Rossem himself had a seat in the Belgian Chamber of Representatives from November 1991 to May 1995 and the
Flemish Parliament from January 1992 to May 1995. In 2014 he went back to the elections with his party ROSSEM but lost with only 0.3% of the votes for the Belgian Federal Parliament and 0.2% for the Flemish Parliament. ==Controversies==