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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye,

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Speaker 1: welcome to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so much

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Speaker 1: for tuning in. Uh and Ben, I don't have a

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Speaker 1: bridge to sell you a bridge. Yeah, that's the old

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Speaker 1: con thing that you say, is that like the Tom

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Speaker 1: Sawyer like tricking me into panting your fence kind of

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Speaker 1: It's there was a guy who, way back in the

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Speaker 1: day would pretend to own bridges. This has actually happened

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Speaker 1: more than once and then sell quote unquote sell the bridges.

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Speaker 1: The bridges belonged to the people. You know, I thought

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Speaker 1: it was like public work situation. Well, the guy who

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Speaker 1: was doing this, people did this clearly could Hey who

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Speaker 1: are you? My name is uh No, Pietro Giovanni Guglielmo

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Speaker 1: Tabaldo Brown and that's our super producer, Casey Pegram. Wasn't

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Speaker 1: it like the Brooklyn Bridge, specifically that that was sold

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Speaker 1: to some foolhardy person. Yeah, Like that's kind of the expression, right,

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Speaker 1: It's like, if you'll believe that, then I got a

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Speaker 1: bridge in Brooklyn and Celia the kind of thing interesting

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Speaker 1: or some waterfront property time share perhaps exactly. One of

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Speaker 1: my favorite versions of that. You know what I forgot it.

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Speaker 1: We're gonna have to keep going. We're doing it live.

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Speaker 1: We keep going, I'll remember that scambla or we'll get back.

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Speaker 1: Oh wait, we're warning. That's it nothing to do with

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Speaker 1: what kind of something to do with today's episode? Uh?

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Speaker 1: Do you all remember those uh those things where you

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Speaker 1: could like adopt a star and you would get like

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Speaker 1: a certificate of authenticity. Uh? Those things are all scams too?

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Speaker 1: Really well kind of yeah, you can't really own the stars,

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Speaker 1: can you know? Okay, it's like, can you paint with

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Speaker 1: all the colors of the wind? I? Can you can

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Speaker 1: paint with all the colors of most of them? Really? Wait,

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Speaker 1: what are you strong? You wouldn't know, you wouldn't be

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Speaker 1: able to see them. I M delighted to point out that. No,

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Speaker 1: please Nick, but we are we are talking about um,

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Speaker 1: we are talking about cons true, and we are not

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Speaker 1: diving into this alone, are we know? No, we have

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Speaker 1: an arbiter. He's gonna keep us from fighting over the

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Speaker 1: colors of the wind. It's true, and it is Chelsea Erson,

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Speaker 1: the host and creator and sound designer and uh engineer, engineer,

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Speaker 1: jordinair producer, all the things of the Amazing Dear Young Rocker,

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Speaker 1: which is on the I Heart podcast network through Double Elvis,

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Speaker 1: the wonderful team behind Disgrace Land and Jake Brenn and

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Speaker 1: Chelsea welcome to the show. Thank you so much for

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Speaker 1: having me here in humid, humid Georgia. I love to

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Speaker 1: feel my skin color. That's how It's sort of like

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Speaker 1: that trend resident line about how I hurt himself today

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Speaker 1: to see if he still feels we feel through the

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Speaker 1: sweat of our of our bodies here in Georgia. I

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Speaker 1: feel like, you know, sometimes living up north, you're probably

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Speaker 1: asking yourself, what would it be like to feel like

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Speaker 1: I hit a wet rubber blanket every time I went outside?

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Speaker 1: And now you no longer have to wonder. It's great. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: It's like I can feel and smell myself in in

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Speaker 1: ways I haven't thought of since August. Not to mention

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Speaker 1: it is about tenfold here in this sweltering shipping container

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Speaker 1: that we're sitting in right now. We are in the

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Speaker 1: most humid room in the human building in the humid towns.

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Speaker 1: But we have been inspired through our earlier conversations a

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Speaker 1: fair Chelsea. We we want to thank you so much

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Speaker 1: for coming on the show, and we have been talking

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Speaker 1: back and forth about what kind of what kind of

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Speaker 1: story we wanted to examine in today's episode. And I'm

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Speaker 1: not sure if you know this, but our show has

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Speaker 1: a history of exploring cons, scams, flim flam artists, and

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Speaker 1: so on. So this idea of yours was right up

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Speaker 1: our figurative alley. It's true, and it has a tie

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Speaker 1: to your city of Boston, Massachusetts. It certainly does. I

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Speaker 1: am from the home of maybe the birthplace of American

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Speaker 1: organized crime. I don't know. Maybe New York would get

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Speaker 1: really mad at me for saying that, but you know,

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Speaker 1: the mafia and Boston like, we love them, We're proud

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Speaker 1: of them. You were telling us a little bit about

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Speaker 1: that off air. I remember the first time I went

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Speaker 1: to Boston and it hit me that organized crime was

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Speaker 1: very much a thing and it wasn't just stuff that

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Speaker 1: you know, Scorsese had like embellished. I don't know, yeah, no, no,

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Speaker 1: that's true. And I guess we're talking about today. It

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Speaker 1: is organized crime. It's just a little bit like it's

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Speaker 1: an organized crime enterprise of one kind of you know,

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Speaker 1: and this notion of a con artist and I always

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Speaker 1: was thinking like it's confidence, man, Right, that's what he's

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Speaker 1: short for. And it literally I mean to correct me

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Speaker 1: if I'm wrong. The superpower of a con artist is

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Speaker 1: is having unflappable confidence and being able to like gain

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Speaker 1: your trust and convince you that he can do no

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Speaker 1: wrong and just sell you a bill of goods. Right. Absolutely.

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Speaker 1: As I was researching all different financial schemes, I found

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Speaker 1: the one thing in common with all these different people

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Speaker 1: is that they really really believe their lies, and that

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Speaker 1: gets other people to believe their lies to the point

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Speaker 1: where even when they get busted the people they took

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Speaker 1: advantage over, like I still believe in you. You're still

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Speaker 1: my hero. It's amazing to have that self esteem. I

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Speaker 1: can't imagine what it's like. Yeah, I mean, it's it's

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Speaker 1: it's simultaneously impressive and just like clearly very very toxic

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Speaker 1: and terrible. Yeah. And today we're talking about none other

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Speaker 1: than the kind of father of of this flam flam um,

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Speaker 1: Carlo Pietro Giovanni Giglielmo Tabaldounzi a k a. Charles Ponzi

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Speaker 1: born eighty two in Lugo, Italy. I yes, s I

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Speaker 1: S Ponzi. The name will be familiar to many of us.

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Speaker 1: We've heard of something called the Ponzi scheme. Charles or

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Speaker 1: Carlo was was Italian, right, and it was a swindler.

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Speaker 1: He also, you know, did something that a lot of

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Speaker 1: con artists do, which was he was somewhat chameleon like

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Speaker 1: at the time when he traveled to the United States.

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Speaker 1: When he became known in the nineteen twenties. Uh, it

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Speaker 1: was as a more americanized name as Charles Ponzi. But

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Speaker 1: you know, as you pointed out, no, he changed that

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Speaker 1: because he wanted people to trust him. Charles Ponzi. I

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Speaker 1: feel like, almost like we're starting a roast. What to say?

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Speaker 1: What to say about so much to say his beginnings

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Speaker 1: are interesting because he grew up like his family were

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Speaker 1: considered some form of like gentry like kind of nobility.

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Speaker 1: Somewhat they it's sort of like, used all their money

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Speaker 1: up by the time he was of age. But his

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Speaker 1: mother still like the phrase I used was spinning castles

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Speaker 1: in the sky. Never heard that one before, basically mean

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Speaker 1: living beyond their means, and this idea of you know,

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Speaker 1: oh we're still rich, we deserve this lifestyle. So he

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Speaker 1: was raised with this entitlement that I think really carried

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Speaker 1: over into that belief you're talking about, which is such

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Speaker 1: an important quality that he had. And he's a really

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Speaker 1: multi faceted character. We'll get into some of that, but yeah,

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Speaker 1: so let's move on from kind of maybe when he

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Speaker 1: immigrated to the US Boston. I'm I've had a lot

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Speaker 1: of coffee today. So yeah, he's on the s S

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Speaker 1: Vancouver and he has one of those this is a thing.

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Speaker 1: We don't know if we can trust this guy, but

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Speaker 1: he has one of his very American dreamy stories. Uh.

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Speaker 1: He saw a lot of Italian guys around his age

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Speaker 1: go to the US and return wealthy, right, and so

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Speaker 1: he's where he is, like, you know, I got into

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Speaker 1: this country with two dollars and fifty cents in cash

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Speaker 1: and one million dollars in hopes. It's beautiful. Yes, I

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Speaker 1: mean that if it's true. I believe the one million

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Speaker 1: dollars in hopes part. But how do you quantify how

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Speaker 1: do you put a dollar amount on hopes? I know, right?

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Speaker 1: What what? What price do you put on a dream?

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Speaker 1: But before he even came to the U S. I

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Speaker 1: think he was doing a bunch of sneaky stuff in Italy, right,

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Speaker 1: His family was like what are you doing? Pickpocketry and

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Speaker 1: the like, you know, just like kind of petty crimes, right,

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Speaker 1: and and uh, he was escalating really right, this was

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Speaker 1: another move in his con Now, we do have to

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Speaker 1: point out he's a very, very clever man. He did

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Speaker 1: not know English when he got here. He picked it up,

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Speaker 1: he quickly learned it, and he initially he's probably still

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Speaker 1: like stealing the odd wallet and you know, slick talk

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Speaker 1: and someone. But he initially was just working a bunch

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Speaker 1: of like I don't want to say dead end jobs,

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Speaker 1: but like odd ups, whatever you could get, like dishwashers,

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Speaker 1: but things that he clearly thought were beneath him, right

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Speaker 1: as an aristocrat and having that entitlement you mentioned earlier.

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Speaker 1: So we know who he is now, right, But we

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Speaker 1: also know this guy probably had that moment where he's like,

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Speaker 1: I'm better than this. I'm not going to be a

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Speaker 1: dishwasher all my life. I'm tired of sleeping on the

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Speaker 1: floor of this restaurant. I got to come up with

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Speaker 1: something big. So what what what happens? Well, he did

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Speaker 1: a couple of goofy things. I know he went to

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Speaker 1: Canada at one point and he worked for a bank

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Speaker 1: and he like stole some old ladies money out of

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Speaker 1: her bank account and went to jail for that. And

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Speaker 1: he loves lying so much that he wrote to his

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Speaker 1: parents and was like, Yeah, I'm gonna be working at

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Speaker 1: this jail for three years, so you're gonna get a

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Speaker 1: lot of letters from here. And then he got out.

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Speaker 1: I think he went to jail like a few times

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Speaker 1: before he did his most famous dupe. So he decided

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Speaker 1: he would get into arbitrage. I think I said that right,

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Speaker 1: and I see that right. Okay, that's the first time

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Speaker 1: I've said that out loud and feeling smart. So arbitrage,

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Speaker 1: for the uninitiated, is when you basically buy some stuff

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Speaker 1: on the cheap and you sell it for more money.

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Speaker 1: And it could be like it could be currency, like

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Speaker 1: doing a currency exchange, getting it in a country where

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Speaker 1: the dollar is weak and then exchanging it for US

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Speaker 1: currency that was stronger or whatever. But he decided to

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Speaker 1: do it with these things called postal coupons, which I

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Speaker 1: don't think exists anymore. And they're stamps. They're not stamps

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Speaker 1: like you use them to get stamps. Somehow, I still

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Speaker 1: don't it's like an old thing. But I didn't know

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Speaker 1: about it either they're they're called postal reply. So I

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Speaker 1: think the idea is it's sort of a converter, like

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Speaker 1: of you know, currency, and and he capitalized on the

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Speaker 1: exchange rate being weaker in European country. So his idea was, Okay,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna go over to Europe, buy a bunch of

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Speaker 1: these coupons at a lower rate, and then shape change

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Speaker 1: them for stamps in the States, and then exchange the

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Speaker 1: stamps for more money. He was getting them in Spain, right,

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Speaker 1: that's right, that's right, But ran into this issue of like,

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Speaker 1: oh I don't have all these stamps and stamps don't

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Speaker 1: equal money, Like you can't trade stamps in the bank

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Speaker 1: for cat never totally made sense anyway, but people believed

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Speaker 1: that it would somehow make millions of dollars the power

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Speaker 1: of belief. I'm just so excited because for years I've

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Speaker 1: been trying to think of the most petty crime that, like,

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Speaker 1: the most petty crime you could actually get in trouble for,

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Speaker 1: and a new stamp fraud was the thing. But this

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Speaker 1: is the first time I've found someone who managed to

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Speaker 1: do it. I guess that ten percent vague he was

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Speaker 1: getting was was worth it. Or what how did it

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Speaker 1: work out? He didn't even ever really get many of them,

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Speaker 1: never even really from what I read, he never actually

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Speaker 1: bought thousands of these things. He looked into it, never

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Speaker 1: actually did it, but got investors to believe he was

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Speaker 1: going to use their money to go over to your

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Speaker 1: and buy all the stamps because it's like it's it's

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Speaker 1: such a novel sounding idea that it's like, oh, it's genius. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's great. Yeah, because he was he was like offering

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Speaker 1: a return on investment that was just like unprecedented, a

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Speaker 1: k a. Too good to be true. But he kept

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Speaker 1: it going for so long, and I think it's again

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Speaker 1: it's like he's an interesting character. He. I think he

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Speaker 1: believed that he was gonna make good on it eventually,

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Speaker 1: kind of you know where he was like, Oh, I'm

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Speaker 1: not really scamming anybody. I'm just you know, trying to

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Speaker 1: figure things out and I can't get those cubans. Later sure,

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Speaker 1: but then enough people handed him enough money that he

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Speaker 1: was like, oh, I could just keep getting money and

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Speaker 1: do nothing. Really quickly to backtrack to a previous job

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Speaker 1: that he had at a bank. He worked at this bank,

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Speaker 1: and one of his managers or the owner of the

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Speaker 1: bank I believe, was doing a very similar con where

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Speaker 1: he was basically using other depositors money to pay like

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Speaker 1: interest to other depositors, and he kept doing that for

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Speaker 1: so long. The bank eventually went bankrupt because it's not sustainable.

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Speaker 1: But Ponzi saw this trick and he was able to

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Speaker 1: apply it to this uh postal coupon situde. Very old trick.

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Speaker 1: I guess it. It goes back to like the beginning

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Speaker 1: of civilization, Like as long as people have had money,

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Speaker 1: they do the Hey, give me your money, I'll give

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Speaker 1: you a bunch of it back, and it'll just magically increase.

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Speaker 1: But eventually you run out of new money and you

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Speaker 1: get caught. Takes money to make money, right, Sean, you

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Speaker 1: don't keep it moving. The old robbing Peter to pay

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Speaker 1: Paul scam. I don't know where Mary is in all

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Speaker 1: of this. Oh Mary, Mary was robbing Peter to pay Paul.

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Speaker 1: Oh there you go, like implied, that makes perfect sense,

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Speaker 1: which will be interesting later. No spoil So we do

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Speaker 1: have to say, though, I love that you point out

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Speaker 1: his inspiration in the bank. He was also inspired or

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Speaker 1: by other con artists at the time. I don't know

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Speaker 1: if it's the benefit or retrospect here. But it feels

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Speaker 1: like it was just way easier to con people. They

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Speaker 1: didn't have you know, they didn't have a phone where

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Speaker 1: they could check on your postal reply coupons. Right, there

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Speaker 1: was no Google. And also banks were just very unregulated.

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Speaker 1: If you just had some cash, you could be like

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Speaker 1: I have a bank. Now. You just buy an office

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Speaker 1: space and people come in and give you their money,

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Speaker 1: and then you have a bank, and that was it.

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Speaker 1: Which I just you know what, I'm not afraid of

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Speaker 1: asking the dumb questions here, just just to be like,

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Speaker 1: we can't do that anymore. Right. I haven't tried to

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Speaker 1: open a bank myself, but I believe there are many

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Speaker 1: regulations I can't do, like a pop up bank like

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Speaker 1: you were doing a Panini place or something like Panini

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Speaker 1: Place and bank love it. I think you should go

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Speaker 1: for it. You're on board. Thinks you have a million

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Speaker 1: dollars with dreams to deposit and I can turn your

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Speaker 1: one million dollars into two million. Dot well you know what,

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Speaker 1: let me say, I can turn it into about sixty

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Speaker 1: one dollars worth of post will reply coupons. Because that's

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Speaker 1: where that's where ponds landed ultimately when they finally audited

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Speaker 1: his company's assets. Uh. And this this comes to us

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Speaker 1: from a great, a great book, Ponzi The Boston Swindler.

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Speaker 1: So what on earth possessed the guy? You know, we've

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Speaker 1: seen in the past that there are some people who

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Speaker 1: just seemed to love Connie. They're almost like Christopher Nolan's

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Speaker 1: version of the Joker, where it's about sending a message

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Speaker 1: instead of the money. But this guy, I feel like

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Speaker 1: he enjoyed it personally. But I feel like he also

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Speaker 1: wasn't just um, as you would say Nol, an agent

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Speaker 1: of chaos. I feel like he definitely did want to

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Speaker 1: turn profit at the end of the day. Right, Yeah, Well,

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Speaker 1: I think a lot of it's tied to that American

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Speaker 1: dream you were mentioning. He wanted to be like the

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Speaker 1: Italian immigrant American dream. And that's also what I think.

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Speaker 1: A lot of his investors were also Italians, and so

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Speaker 1: they probably liked that he was still speaking Italian. They

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Speaker 1: trusted him for that reason, and so he wanted to

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Speaker 1: prove a point. He went and bought a mansion with

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Speaker 1: a heated pool, which wasn't a thing that existed at

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Speaker 1: that time, and he wanted to be like, yeah, like

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Speaker 1: the next Christopher Columbus or something of his community, and

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Speaker 1: that's that's how they saw him. There was even a

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Speaker 1: quote I heard in this history documentary about this where

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Speaker 1: someone was saying, he's the greatest man alive, and what

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Speaker 1: about Christopher Columbians, Like Christopher Columbius discovered America, But Charles

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00:16:35,440 --> 00:16:40,160
Speaker 1: Ponzi invented money. Because that's the thing. He was beloved

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Speaker 1: because as far as everyone was concerned, he was like

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Speaker 1: being a really good steward of his community. He was

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Speaker 1: helping people. A lot of the people that were giving

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Speaker 1: them his life their life savings were not wealthy people,

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Speaker 1: and so that was a big deal for these folks

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Speaker 1: to be able to turn that kind of profit around

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Speaker 1: so quickly. And again he was paying these returns with

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Speaker 1: like he would get new investors and pay the old

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Speaker 1: investors when they demand their returns or not demand. It

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Speaker 1: was just a I don't know how that worked, Like

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Speaker 1: when you call in your I don't want to take

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Speaker 1: my money out. It's like when you want to cash

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Speaker 1: your stocks out or whatever. Then he would pay them

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Speaker 1: their returns with the new money. And he had so

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Speaker 1: many people in the system that it kept escalating by

307
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Speaker 1: the he ran this for about a year, and by

308
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Speaker 1: the end of it, he had taken in around twenty

309
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Speaker 1: million dollars ben should we inflation calculator that really quick?

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Speaker 1: Why don't we let's see, sir, a drum roll just

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna imagine there's a drum roll here. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: and the results are in. Thanks for that wonderful drum roll, Chelsea. Uh,

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Speaker 1: twenty million dollars nineteen twenty is equal to this number

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Speaker 1: is so big that it's kind of difficult to read.

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Speaker 1: So give me a second. I'm just gonna getta figure

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Speaker 1: this out right, Uh to gred and fifty nine million

317
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Speaker 1: dollars a little bit over that, a little bit over

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Speaker 1: cents as well. It's it's the counting. Yeah, that's that's

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Speaker 1: pretty wild. Um. So okay, we're getting a little ahead

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Speaker 1: of ourselves because it took a little time for the

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Speaker 1: scheme to kind of unravel. Um. And a big part

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Speaker 1: of what happened was one of his earliest investors was

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Speaker 1: this furniture magnate maybe them giving him too much credit there,

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Speaker 1: furniture dealer let's call him, yes, entrepreneur Joseph Daniels. He

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Speaker 1: was one of Ponzi's first investors, and he sued him

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Speaker 1: for one and a half million dollars because he claimed

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Speaker 1: that what he had given him was seed money and

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Speaker 1: that he had a claim in this whole business because

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Speaker 1: it was a business, like he bought a building, he

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Speaker 1: had an office, he was he had sales, he had

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Speaker 1: a line out the door every day because who wouldn't

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Speaker 1: want to double their money? Offered coffee and donuts every day,

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Speaker 1: which somehow convinced everyone he was legiti would have gone

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Speaker 1: just for the if you're doing, if people like you,

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Speaker 1: if you give him food. He was so popular that

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Speaker 1: a copycat company sprung up right next to him just

337
00:19:07,920 --> 00:19:10,520
Speaker 1: to pick off people out of his line, like offering

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Speaker 1: like this similar service. Because you know, there's one thing

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Speaker 1: that scams attract its other scamsters who are like, I

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00:19:16,600 --> 00:19:19,000
Speaker 1: want to get in on that. Uh, that that action,

341
00:19:19,119 --> 00:19:21,280
Speaker 1: and that's exactly what happened. Well, let's pay a picture

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Speaker 1: too of how he builds this empire, because again, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's almost cliche to say it, but it was a

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Speaker 1: different time and in a way he was very informal.

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Speaker 1: He cultivated this image of success, this aristocratic kind of

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Speaker 1: vibe for lack of a better word, and he would

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Speaker 1: go to neighborhood cafes. He would show up at the

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Speaker 1: budget ball and you know, he would glad hand and

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Speaker 1: he would always be kind of white rabbit Alice Wonderland style,

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00:19:48,720 --> 00:19:51,080
Speaker 1: in a little bit of a hurry, and he would

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Speaker 1: he would be your friendly guy who's good with money,

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Speaker 1: who could give you a little advice, you know, for free,

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Speaker 1: just like, Hey, here's what I would do, um, and

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Speaker 1: I guess some big opportun you know, I could help

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Speaker 1: you out if you want. Oh, chucks, though, I gotta

356
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Speaker 1: go meet a client. How about I come back next Thursday.

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Speaker 1: And in meantime, tell your mother, I said, Hi, you know,

358
00:20:08,640 --> 00:20:11,200
Speaker 1: how's she doing good? And then he would come back.

359
00:20:11,440 --> 00:20:15,320
Speaker 1: And so he built this rapport because people didn't originally

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Speaker 1: feel like they were working with an investor. They felt

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Speaker 1: like they were working with their friend who was good

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Speaker 1: at investment. Right. And then once that expands to the building,

363
00:20:26,320 --> 00:20:30,800
Speaker 1: once that expands to uh, this this sales associate operation.

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00:20:31,359 --> 00:20:34,200
Speaker 1: You know, at some point most of the actual investment

365
00:20:34,280 --> 00:20:37,040
Speaker 1: pitches that were happening in the Ponzi scheme were by

366
00:20:37,080 --> 00:20:39,800
Speaker 1: people he had trained and not himself, and he was

367
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Speaker 1: giving them a ten percent commission when they have more people,

368
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Speaker 1: and then those sales agents would recruit people they called

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Speaker 1: sub agents, and those sub agents got a five percent commission,

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Speaker 1: just like a kick back in any nice mafia family.

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Speaker 1: That's how you do it, if you're gonna do it right,

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Speaker 1: you know, kickback has gotta go all around, so people

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Speaker 1: watch your back, so no one's like ratting out on you, right,

374
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Speaker 1: because everyone's got to get their little their little taste. Um.

375
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Speaker 1: But again, like from the start, all of us was

376
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Speaker 1: based on this unflappable kind of confidence that the guy had.

377
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Speaker 1: He always wore nice suits, even if he couldn't really

378
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Speaker 1: afford it, he would make it happen. And it was

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Speaker 1: all about the optics of like, look at me, I'm

380
00:21:18,560 --> 00:21:21,080
Speaker 1: an upstanding business person listening to this pitch. It's the

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00:21:21,119 --> 00:21:23,359
Speaker 1: deal of a lifetime. You'd be stupid if you didn't

382
00:21:23,359 --> 00:21:26,119
Speaker 1: do it. And people went for it, and he really

383
00:21:26,160 --> 00:21:30,000
Speaker 1: built it into this crazy critical mass that was going

384
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Speaker 1: to come screeching to an absolute halt. Yeah, by the

385
00:21:33,920 --> 00:21:39,200
Speaker 1: time this Daniels lawsuit comes into play, Ponzi has a mansion,

386
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Speaker 1: he's got servants, he's got some dope cars, haven't talked

387
00:21:42,800 --> 00:21:44,600
Speaker 1: about his wife yet, have we No, we haven't talked

388
00:21:44,600 --> 00:21:47,000
Speaker 1: about Rose, and we really should. We really should, because

389
00:21:47,040 --> 00:21:50,840
Speaker 1: she was not so into this, uh, this bougie lifestyle.

390
00:21:51,119 --> 00:21:53,040
Speaker 1: She wanted a little bit more of a simple life,

391
00:21:53,040 --> 00:21:55,399
Speaker 1: and he even had to take it down a peg

392
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Speaker 1: from what he originally wanted, like mansion style, because she

393
00:21:58,520 --> 00:22:00,600
Speaker 1: was like, you know, I don't really need you know,

394
00:22:00,840 --> 00:22:03,520
Speaker 1: the ten story. Let's go with the five stories. Is

395
00:22:03,520 --> 00:22:06,080
Speaker 1: it just twelve rooms enough? Yeah? Exactly. I don't know,

396
00:22:06,160 --> 00:22:08,640
Speaker 1: I'm shaking. Just two servants, don't need a whole team

397
00:22:08,680 --> 00:22:11,119
Speaker 1: of servants. But it wasn't really her thing. But she

398
00:22:11,160 --> 00:22:13,680
Speaker 1: really loved the guy, and she stood by him, even

399
00:22:13,680 --> 00:22:15,919
Speaker 1: when we get into some of the uh kind of

400
00:22:15,920 --> 00:22:18,480
Speaker 1: the fall from Grace kind of stories coming up. Yeah,

401
00:22:18,520 --> 00:22:21,719
Speaker 1: and I guess she gave him eight dollars of her

402
00:22:21,720 --> 00:22:27,600
Speaker 1: own money too. That makes her complicit kind of right, Like,

403
00:22:27,680 --> 00:22:30,240
Speaker 1: if your husband's rich, shouldn't you not have to give

404
00:22:30,320 --> 00:22:33,960
Speaker 1: him any money? I don't know, but yeah maybe. I mean,

405
00:22:34,040 --> 00:22:36,720
Speaker 1: you know, every relationship is its own country, so we

406
00:22:37,480 --> 00:22:41,639
Speaker 1: can't really judge too harshly. So we know that in

407
00:22:41,840 --> 00:22:45,159
Speaker 1: July he was also getting a lot of press right in,

408
00:22:46,160 --> 00:22:50,840
Speaker 1: got some good press, and he really worked that PR

409
00:22:50,920 --> 00:22:53,880
Speaker 1: magic he did, you know, like the coffee and donuts

410
00:22:53,920 --> 00:22:56,760
Speaker 1: and the hey, how's your mom? Whatever. He also hired

411
00:22:56,800 --> 00:23:00,560
Speaker 1: the Boston PD to stand outside is off this to

412
00:23:00,760 --> 00:23:03,960
Speaker 1: like look official, like, oh, there must be millions and

413
00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:07,280
Speaker 1: millions of dollars in here because we have the police,

414
00:23:07,359 --> 00:23:09,520
Speaker 1: and those are the people you trust, so you gotta

415
00:23:09,520 --> 00:23:12,360
Speaker 1: trust me and people. I saw that and said, how

416
00:23:12,359 --> 00:23:14,000
Speaker 1: do I get in there? How do I get part

417
00:23:14,040 --> 00:23:17,639
Speaker 1: of that money? You know? And he also had the

418
00:23:17,720 --> 00:23:22,240
Speaker 1: press on his side too. He's a PR genius. There

419
00:23:22,320 --> 00:23:26,399
Speaker 1: was one article from the Boston Post that literally read

420
00:23:27,240 --> 00:23:29,680
Speaker 1: it had a feature on him right and said, uh,

421
00:23:30,000 --> 00:23:33,479
Speaker 1: Charles Ponds. He doubles the money within three months, fifty

422
00:23:34,000 --> 00:23:37,760
Speaker 1: interest paid in forty five days, thousands of investors. And

423
00:23:37,760 --> 00:23:40,840
Speaker 1: then then he leans into this rags to riches American

424
00:23:40,920 --> 00:23:44,400
Speaker 1: dream story and he's like, okay, I have you know.

425
00:23:44,760 --> 00:23:47,840
Speaker 1: I came here with what was it to fifty or something?

426
00:23:48,160 --> 00:23:50,960
Speaker 1: And then I said million dollars of dreams. And in

427
00:23:51,040 --> 00:23:53,920
Speaker 1: the Boston Post they also do another thing that they

428
00:23:53,920 --> 00:23:55,680
Speaker 1: help him do a thing that a lot of confidence

429
00:23:55,760 --> 00:24:00,600
Speaker 1: artists do, which is uh, lie about the very least

430
00:24:00,600 --> 00:24:03,600
Speaker 1: exaggerate their personal worth. So the Boston Post is like,

431
00:24:03,680 --> 00:24:07,640
Speaker 1: this guy is worth eight point five mill just not true.

432
00:24:07,920 --> 00:24:11,320
Speaker 1: That guy from The Apprentice, he did that a lot. Yeah,

433
00:24:11,320 --> 00:24:17,240
Speaker 1: that's the orange guy. He's not, you know, technically, technically

434
00:24:17,240 --> 00:24:19,080
Speaker 1: it's makeup, I think, Do you think so? I don't

435
00:24:19,119 --> 00:24:22,480
Speaker 1: think he's actually orange. Well it's spray tan, ye doesn't.

436
00:24:23,160 --> 00:24:26,359
Speaker 1: Does it wash off? That's my question? Or permanent? I

437
00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:28,960
Speaker 1: don't know. There's a really upsetting picture of him where

438
00:24:28,960 --> 00:24:30,560
Speaker 1: his hair is kind of back and you can see

439
00:24:30,560 --> 00:24:33,720
Speaker 1: the scene side. It looks like a weird skin mask,

440
00:24:33,840 --> 00:24:37,280
Speaker 1: like a Hannibal lectric kind of situation. But we digress.

441
00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:39,960
Speaker 1: Here's the thing though, he did get some good press

442
00:24:39,960 --> 00:24:43,000
Speaker 1: at first. He did have this pr machine that was

443
00:24:43,080 --> 00:24:45,760
Speaker 1: led by a guy by the name of William McMasters,

444
00:24:45,960 --> 00:24:49,080
Speaker 1: who was his publicist. He will come into play very shortly,

445
00:24:49,320 --> 00:24:51,720
Speaker 1: but as you would think would happen in a situation

446
00:24:51,720 --> 00:24:53,320
Speaker 1: like this where he didn't really have an out. He

447
00:24:53,359 --> 00:24:55,960
Speaker 1: didn't really have like a plan for the future. He

448
00:24:56,119 --> 00:24:58,720
Speaker 1: was just kind of like spinning his wheels until he

449
00:24:58,960 --> 00:25:02,040
Speaker 1: figured something else out, which wasn't really gonna happen. Um

450
00:25:02,040 --> 00:25:04,720
Speaker 1: people started looking into it, and they're like, huh, this

451
00:25:04,760 --> 00:25:07,479
Speaker 1: stuff doesn't really add up. He's claiming he's got all

452
00:25:07,480 --> 00:25:11,280
Speaker 1: this money in circulation. There's only twenty seven thousand total.

453
00:25:11,320 --> 00:25:13,280
Speaker 1: I mean, like you know, like, uh, the number of

454
00:25:13,320 --> 00:25:17,280
Speaker 1: postal reply coupons is a finite amount. There's only so

455
00:25:17,280 --> 00:25:19,360
Speaker 1: many circulating in the same way like there's so much

456
00:25:19,400 --> 00:25:22,080
Speaker 1: cash circulating or you know, bonds or whatever have you.

457
00:25:22,080 --> 00:25:24,639
Speaker 1: So they they this is known. He's saying, wait a minute,

458
00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:27,359
Speaker 1: So he'd had to be moving around a hundred and

459
00:25:27,400 --> 00:25:32,359
Speaker 1: sixty million of these postal coupons in order to pay

460
00:25:32,400 --> 00:25:35,680
Speaker 1: back the amount of money that he's got invested. There's

461
00:25:35,680 --> 00:25:38,800
Speaker 1: only twenty seven thousand postal reply coupons in the whole world.

462
00:25:39,400 --> 00:25:42,800
Speaker 1: That doesn't doesn't make any sense. Uh. And Clarence Barron,

463
00:25:42,920 --> 00:25:45,320
Speaker 1: who was the owner of the Wall Street Journal and

464
00:25:45,359 --> 00:25:48,520
Speaker 1: then you know, founded Magazine, he's the one who kind

465
00:25:48,560 --> 00:25:50,679
Speaker 1: of started to look into this and started, you know,

466
00:25:50,760 --> 00:25:55,280
Speaker 1: turning over some some stones. And then his pr man

467
00:25:55,359 --> 00:25:59,560
Speaker 1: himself McMasters, he saw through it as well because he

468
00:25:59,600 --> 00:26:02,000
Speaker 1: was not on the scam. He was just this guy's

469
00:26:02,040 --> 00:26:03,920
Speaker 1: the golden boy, like he's he can do no wrong.

470
00:26:03,960 --> 00:26:05,760
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make some money and be a part of this.

471
00:26:06,080 --> 00:26:08,359
Speaker 1: He started to see through it as well, and he

472
00:26:08,760 --> 00:26:12,840
Speaker 1: was quoted and saying this about his boss. The man

473
00:26:13,080 --> 00:26:17,080
Speaker 1: is a financial idiot. He can hardly add. He sits

474
00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:19,960
Speaker 1: with his feet on the desk, smoking expensive cigars and

475
00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:24,560
Speaker 1: a diamond holder and talking complete gibberish about postal coupons.

476
00:26:25,320 --> 00:26:29,640
Speaker 1: What a life. There's another thing, Baron notes. Clarence Baron

477
00:26:29,760 --> 00:26:33,520
Speaker 1: notes in that article where he says, Okay, I'll look

478
00:26:33,600 --> 00:26:36,040
Speaker 1: back through the stories, the ponds. He tells these newspapers

479
00:26:36,040 --> 00:26:39,800
Speaker 1: that love him, and he says that when people ask

480
00:26:39,920 --> 00:26:42,520
Speaker 1: what he does with his winnings, he says that he

481
00:26:42,640 --> 00:26:47,359
Speaker 1: invests like any other investor, real estate, stocks, bonds. And

482
00:26:47,400 --> 00:26:50,359
Speaker 1: then Baron has that moment it will click click light

483
00:26:50,440 --> 00:26:54,080
Speaker 1: bulb moment where he goes, hang on, hang on, hang on,

484
00:26:54,240 --> 00:26:57,960
Speaker 1: CP If if your scheme is so good and you

485
00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:01,439
Speaker 1: can consistently make a five deeper sent profit, what the

486
00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:04,640
Speaker 1: hell are you doing putting your money in stuff like

487
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:08,720
Speaker 1: regular investments that make nowhere near that much? Like what? What?

488
00:27:08,720 --> 00:27:12,680
Speaker 1: What gives? And that's a question that people can't answer,

489
00:27:12,960 --> 00:27:18,720
Speaker 1: and it doesn't jibe with the carefully constructed Ponzi image, right, right,

490
00:27:18,760 --> 00:27:25,640
Speaker 1: that's when it starts falling apart. Yeah, that's right. It's like, um,

491
00:27:25,880 --> 00:27:28,200
Speaker 1: just I think about a month after that line that

492
00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:33,520
Speaker 1: you mentioned, the from McMasters, regulators raid Ponzi's office and

493
00:27:33,640 --> 00:27:39,240
Speaker 1: they're looking for millions of postal reply coupons stamp fraud.

494
00:27:39,359 --> 00:27:41,119
Speaker 1: I love it. I mean, what do you call the

495
00:27:41,160 --> 00:27:46,560
Speaker 1: stamp people phil itists? Yeah? Yeah, right, memory, Yeah, yeah,

496
00:27:46,760 --> 00:27:50,160
Speaker 1: you did not have massive hoarded stashes of these things

497
00:27:50,160 --> 00:27:52,160
Speaker 1: because he never really bought any in the first place.

498
00:27:52,840 --> 00:27:58,720
Speaker 1: Boom they all right, So the s hits the f

499
00:27:59,080 --> 00:28:03,080
Speaker 1: ponz had has used the mail to talk to people

500
00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:06,240
Speaker 1: about their quote unquote investments, and when you mess with

501
00:28:06,280 --> 00:28:09,720
Speaker 1: the mail, that gives you mail fraud charges. These are

502
00:28:09,800 --> 00:28:12,359
Speaker 1: these are only some of the many charges he goes

503
00:28:12,400 --> 00:28:16,879
Speaker 1: down for. Ultimately, he's charged with eighty six different things

504
00:28:16,920 --> 00:28:21,280
Speaker 1: in two different indictments. He pleads guilty to one, and

505
00:28:21,480 --> 00:28:24,080
Speaker 1: he gets off with what I think is kind of

506
00:28:23,880 --> 00:28:28,119
Speaker 1: a brief prison sentence. What is It's like five years

507
00:28:30,280 --> 00:28:34,560
Speaker 1: white collar crime. It's uh the way to not due time.

508
00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:39,080
Speaker 1: Heynemonic there, Yeah, that's not the word at all, just

509
00:28:39,120 --> 00:28:43,000
Speaker 1: a rhyme to remember things. That's what I thought neemonic

510
00:28:43,120 --> 00:28:46,880
Speaker 1: was like letters that like Easter or something. I think

511
00:28:46,960 --> 00:28:51,280
Speaker 1: any memory trick isneumonic Johnny Nemonic. Yeah, that's America. Yeah,

512
00:28:51,320 --> 00:28:54,360
Speaker 1: it was a film Reeves. Oh yeah, yeah, sort of

513
00:28:54,400 --> 00:28:57,840
Speaker 1: a future Internet. He was always sort of building towards

514
00:28:57,880 --> 00:29:00,640
Speaker 1: the matrix, you know. He was, Yeah, I'm really glad

515
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:03,440
Speaker 1: they didn't give that to Will Smith. Oh that's right.

516
00:29:03,640 --> 00:29:08,040
Speaker 1: Will Smith rejected it. I think you learned something new

517
00:29:08,120 --> 00:29:12,760
Speaker 1: on ridiculous history every time, or at least something ridiculous. Um.

518
00:29:12,840 --> 00:29:16,400
Speaker 1: But here's the thing too, Like he knew that from

519
00:29:16,400 --> 00:29:19,360
Speaker 1: the start the steaks were hot lower for these white

520
00:29:19,360 --> 00:29:22,400
Speaker 1: collar crimes. The rules didn't apply to the wealthy, and

521
00:29:22,440 --> 00:29:25,120
Speaker 1: it's that same entitle man. There is a really interesting

522
00:29:25,160 --> 00:29:27,320
Speaker 1: detail about Ponzi. I just want to bring up because

523
00:29:27,320 --> 00:29:29,120
Speaker 1: I was saying how he's kind of a complicated figure.

524
00:29:29,640 --> 00:29:33,600
Speaker 1: He did a really selfless thing before all of this stuff.

525
00:29:33,640 --> 00:29:36,240
Speaker 1: There was a nurse or somebody in his community who

526
00:29:36,320 --> 00:29:39,120
Speaker 1: was horribly burned in a fire and needed this really

527
00:29:39,160 --> 00:29:43,320
Speaker 1: intense skin graft, and he donated all of this skin

528
00:29:43,760 --> 00:29:45,880
Speaker 1: from the backs of his legs to like do skin

529
00:29:45,960 --> 00:29:48,040
Speaker 1: graphs on this woman. And he had to be in

530
00:29:48,080 --> 00:29:50,160
Speaker 1: the hospital for like three months to recover from this.

531
00:29:50,240 --> 00:29:52,840
Speaker 1: So it's strange because I really do somewhere in the

532
00:29:52,840 --> 00:29:56,760
Speaker 1: back of my mind, I'm like, he really wasn't trying

533
00:29:56,880 --> 00:30:00,360
Speaker 1: to screw people over. He was just had this almost

534
00:30:00,480 --> 00:30:05,280
Speaker 1: sociopathic kind of positivity or whatever mind. He probably really

535
00:30:05,480 --> 00:30:08,120
Speaker 1: was helping people and that's part of it. He did

536
00:30:08,160 --> 00:30:10,200
Speaker 1: that and probably felt like all the rest of it

537
00:30:10,240 --> 00:30:13,719
Speaker 1: was worth it. And I mean, you watched interviews with

538
00:30:13,840 --> 00:30:16,920
Speaker 1: made Off and he says, yes, I'm very remorseful for

539
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:19,120
Speaker 1: all the people's lives I ruined. And he just says

540
00:30:19,120 --> 00:30:21,400
Speaker 1: it in a monshone like that, and You're like, really,

541
00:30:21,480 --> 00:30:24,400
Speaker 1: are you And they asked him, don't didn't you, you know,

542
00:30:24,520 --> 00:30:26,760
Speaker 1: feel like you were going to get caught? And I

543
00:30:26,840 --> 00:30:29,760
Speaker 1: never thought about it. These people just that's how they

544
00:30:29,760 --> 00:30:31,600
Speaker 1: do it. They just really don't think about it, and

545
00:30:31,600 --> 00:30:36,080
Speaker 1: they think they're helping people. They've convinced themselves. And now

546
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:40,200
Speaker 1: we know now fast forward twenty right, um, we know

547
00:30:40,440 --> 00:30:45,040
Speaker 1: that the biggest contribution Charles Ponzi ultimately makes to society

548
00:30:45,360 --> 00:30:48,280
Speaker 1: is the concept of the Ponzi scheme, right, and he

549
00:30:48,360 --> 00:30:50,720
Speaker 1: gets a lot of credit for it, so which so

550
00:30:50,880 --> 00:30:57,440
Speaker 1: that it's named after him. But in our earlier conversations. Chelsea,

551
00:30:57,920 --> 00:31:00,840
Speaker 1: you did some dickie and you've got a plot twist

552
00:31:00,920 --> 00:31:04,520
Speaker 1: for us today. Is that correct? I sure do. Um.

553
00:31:04,640 --> 00:31:07,200
Speaker 1: I just want to add one PostScript because I think

554
00:31:07,240 --> 00:31:11,280
Speaker 1: my favorite part about Ponzi is that after this he

555
00:31:11,360 --> 00:31:15,760
Speaker 1: went back to Italy made friends with Mussolini, who sent

556
00:31:15,840 --> 00:31:18,480
Speaker 1: him to Rio de Janeiro to run an airline because

557
00:31:18,480 --> 00:31:23,120
Speaker 1: he loved him so much, and that's where he died. Wow. Yeah,

558
00:31:23,240 --> 00:31:25,560
Speaker 1: he kind of got away with it. Then he got

559
00:31:25,560 --> 00:31:29,520
Speaker 1: away with everything. People just loved him. But anyway, he

560
00:31:29,600 --> 00:31:32,719
Speaker 1: was his really interesting character. He did really well at

561
00:31:32,760 --> 00:31:35,920
Speaker 1: this with the help of the press. But did he

562
00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:41,320
Speaker 1: invent the scheme that is named after him. Absolutely not.

563
00:31:42,120 --> 00:31:46,560
Speaker 1: A Ponzi scheme is an ancient structure and he wasn't

564
00:31:46,560 --> 00:31:49,800
Speaker 1: even the first person in Boston to pull it off.

565
00:31:55,160 --> 00:32:02,680
Speaker 1: Forty years before Ponzi, there was Mss Sarah how she

566
00:32:04,000 --> 00:32:07,680
Speaker 1: is just as interesting as Pondsi, if not way more

567
00:32:07,800 --> 00:32:14,040
Speaker 1: for other bizarre reasons. So she, like Ponzi, she targeted

568
00:32:14,400 --> 00:32:20,040
Speaker 1: a group of people, a minority. Instead of Italian American immigrants,

569
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:25,520
Speaker 1: it was single women because in the eight hundreds women

570
00:32:26,280 --> 00:32:29,000
Speaker 1: couldn't really do anything with their money. If they were

571
00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:32,360
Speaker 1: married or they were still living with their father, those

572
00:32:32,360 --> 00:32:35,840
Speaker 1: men would take their money and do whatever they wanted

573
00:32:35,880 --> 00:32:38,160
Speaker 1: with it. But if they were a single woman, they

574
00:32:38,160 --> 00:32:41,080
Speaker 1: owned their own money, but they couldn't start a business.

575
00:32:41,200 --> 00:32:43,360
Speaker 1: They couldn't really do much. The only thing they could

576
00:32:43,360 --> 00:32:47,040
Speaker 1: do is put their money in a bank. And so actually,

577
00:32:47,600 --> 00:32:51,000
Speaker 1: at that time, most of the shareholders in the country

578
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:53,440
Speaker 1: where women, strangely, because that's like the one thing they

579
00:32:53,480 --> 00:32:55,800
Speaker 1: could do is like sit at home and invest, I guess.

580
00:32:56,640 --> 00:33:00,400
Speaker 1: So these women were referred to as unprotected females. And

581
00:33:00,480 --> 00:33:03,880
Speaker 1: Sarah how was one of these people. She was divorced

582
00:33:04,480 --> 00:33:09,120
Speaker 1: and she had been working as a fortune teller and

583
00:33:09,800 --> 00:33:13,560
Speaker 1: she decided to just start the first bank for women

584
00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:19,160
Speaker 1: in Boston, and she called it the Ladies Deposit Company.

585
00:33:19,280 --> 00:33:21,560
Speaker 1: I think the tagline was like a bank run by

586
00:33:21,600 --> 00:33:24,560
Speaker 1: women for women or something like that. Pretty inspiring, right,

587
00:33:24,600 --> 00:33:27,600
Speaker 1: if you're the target demo, you're reading this at home,

588
00:33:27,920 --> 00:33:33,720
Speaker 1: you're thinking, finally, because the patriarchy is terrible, right, Most

589
00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:36,920
Speaker 1: banks wouldn't accept unprotected women's money because it was in

590
00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:39,680
Speaker 1: small amounts. They were like, this is worthless. And she said,

591
00:33:39,760 --> 00:33:41,640
Speaker 1: here I am, I'm going to help you invest your

592
00:33:41,680 --> 00:33:46,360
Speaker 1: money and in a few months, I will double it

593
00:33:46,400 --> 00:33:51,200
Speaker 1: for you. And her reason for doubling the money wasn't

594
00:33:51,480 --> 00:33:56,120
Speaker 1: buying stamps or anything weird. It was well, it's actually

595
00:33:56,120 --> 00:33:59,760
Speaker 1: even weirder. She said that a Quaker charity wanted to

596
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:04,240
Speaker 1: help single women and was just gonna like give them

597
00:34:04,280 --> 00:34:07,280
Speaker 1: money for putting their money in the bank. It really

598
00:34:07,320 --> 00:34:10,600
Speaker 1: was founded on absolutely nothing. But again, there was no regulation.

599
00:34:10,719 --> 00:34:14,600
Speaker 1: She just could open a bank by herself. I'm telling you, guys,

600
00:34:14,719 --> 00:34:18,880
Speaker 1: Fanini bank, pop up, get in on the ground. We

601
00:34:18,960 --> 00:34:23,040
Speaker 1: do accept payments in a postal reply coupons. But but yeah,

602
00:34:23,040 --> 00:34:26,200
Speaker 1: you're right, And it's it's interesting because there's such an

603
00:34:26,239 --> 00:34:32,720
Speaker 1: exploitation of desperate times here that that very weird explanation

604
00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:36,800
Speaker 1: doesn't give people pause. No one stops to say, hey,

605
00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:39,839
Speaker 1: if these this quake rew organization or these people are

606
00:34:39,880 --> 00:34:43,960
Speaker 1: so great, what why don't they just give people money? Right?

607
00:34:44,280 --> 00:34:46,600
Speaker 1: And it's I can see how it's kind of spun

608
00:34:46,719 --> 00:34:51,400
Speaker 1: is like maybe we're um, maybe we're advancing equality or something,

609
00:34:51,440 --> 00:34:54,799
Speaker 1: but it already feels convoluted. You know, you would feel

610
00:34:54,800 --> 00:34:59,680
Speaker 1: like philanthropists, if they're doing something for charity, wouldn't be

611
00:34:59,719 --> 00:35:02,239
Speaker 1: a little more like a traditional charity. Well, the thing

612
00:35:02,239 --> 00:35:07,480
Speaker 1: too is like she immediately drew people's attention because what

613
00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:09,719
Speaker 1: she was doing was so radical, and so she got

614
00:35:09,760 --> 00:35:14,640
Speaker 1: a lot of pretty nasty press around her. Um. There

615
00:35:14,719 --> 00:35:18,960
Speaker 1: was a headline, I believe in the Boston Herald. The

616
00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:23,360
Speaker 1: headline was Mrs Howe's unsavory record and did God forbid

617
00:35:23,480 --> 00:35:26,279
Speaker 1: claim that she was born out of wedlock? Uh and

618
00:35:26,440 --> 00:35:28,880
Speaker 1: rent away at the age of fifteen to marry a

619
00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:32,719
Speaker 1: quote Indian physician. This is really offensive, you guys are

620
00:35:32,680 --> 00:35:34,279
Speaker 1: gonna say, because I think it really paints a picture

621
00:35:34,280 --> 00:35:36,960
Speaker 1: of the time who was referred to as her quote

622
00:35:37,400 --> 00:35:43,280
Speaker 1: dark skinned Othello. Um, just really muck raiky type garbage,

623
00:35:43,280 --> 00:35:45,120
Speaker 1: you know. And it wasn't because they thought she was

624
00:35:45,160 --> 00:35:48,239
Speaker 1: doing anything illegal. It was just because she was a

625
00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:52,120
Speaker 1: woman who dared to be successful and to to provide

626
00:35:52,160 --> 00:35:55,600
Speaker 1: a service that women needed. But that's what makes her

627
00:35:56,120 --> 00:36:00,719
Speaker 1: story all the more upsetting, because she really was being

628
00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:04,439
Speaker 1: completely duplicitous and like caying these people who were in need,

629
00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:07,359
Speaker 1: who are looking to her like her own people, like

630
00:36:07,440 --> 00:36:09,880
Speaker 1: you know, she should have been protecting, right right, Women

631
00:36:09,920 --> 00:36:12,880
Speaker 1: from all over the country were sending her money. She

632
00:36:12,920 --> 00:36:15,760
Speaker 1: even opened a second branch in New Bedford. She wanted

633
00:36:15,800 --> 00:36:19,239
Speaker 1: to open more offices in New York and she probably

634
00:36:19,360 --> 00:36:22,000
Speaker 1: could have gotten to that point if the press hadn't

635
00:36:22,040 --> 00:36:24,719
Speaker 1: been so suspicious of her from the beginning. I mean

636
00:36:24,760 --> 00:36:29,120
Speaker 1: the fortune teller thing, yes, but also yeah, she's just

637
00:36:29,160 --> 00:36:32,080
Speaker 1: a single woman, a divorced single woman, and even worse,

638
00:36:32,160 --> 00:36:35,239
Speaker 1: someone who was married to someone who wasn't white. So

639
00:36:35,400 --> 00:36:38,200
Speaker 1: that's very very suspicious if that was even true. We

640
00:36:38,239 --> 00:36:42,120
Speaker 1: don't know much about her, but yeah, the press was

641
00:36:42,160 --> 00:36:45,400
Speaker 1: really on her immediately, and they tried really hard to

642
00:36:45,440 --> 00:36:48,120
Speaker 1: get into her bank and interview her, but she wouldn't

643
00:36:48,160 --> 00:36:51,759
Speaker 1: allow a man even in the lobby, and so reporters

644
00:36:51,800 --> 00:36:53,839
Speaker 1: were dressing up as women to try to get in

645
00:36:53,880 --> 00:36:56,600
Speaker 1: and talk to her. And she had I guess, the

646
00:36:56,640 --> 00:37:01,040
Speaker 1: equivalent of thirteen million dollars today in today's money in

647
00:37:01,120 --> 00:37:03,719
Speaker 1: her bank at the height of her success. I just

648
00:37:03,760 --> 00:37:06,160
Speaker 1: want to point out too, that she was doing the

649
00:37:06,160 --> 00:37:10,960
Speaker 1: exact same things as pond Z before ponz and he

650
00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:14,120
Speaker 1: was lionized for it. Like she would also try to

651
00:37:14,120 --> 00:37:16,920
Speaker 1: get give off an aura or a vibe of wealth.

652
00:37:17,040 --> 00:37:19,880
Speaker 1: You know, she was always dressed to the nines. Uh.

653
00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:24,120
Speaker 1: She was incredibly intelligent, and she you know, when the

654
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:26,960
Speaker 1: media took shots at her, she took shots back right.

655
00:37:27,000 --> 00:37:30,640
Speaker 1: There was a newspaper that critiqued her bank, and she said,

656
00:37:31,120 --> 00:37:33,560
Speaker 1: you know, the fact is, my dear man, you really

657
00:37:33,600 --> 00:37:35,799
Speaker 1: know nothing of the basis, means, or methods on which

658
00:37:35,800 --> 00:37:38,120
Speaker 1: our affairs are conducted. And when shut up in the

659
00:37:38,160 --> 00:37:41,279
Speaker 1: meshes of your savings bank notions, you attempt an exposition

660
00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:44,480
Speaker 1: of the impossibility of our existence. You boggle and flounder

661
00:37:44,600 --> 00:37:47,480
Speaker 1: about like a bat in a fly trap, which is

662
00:37:47,520 --> 00:37:52,319
Speaker 1: like a hardcore murdering via words, you know what I mean.

663
00:37:52,440 --> 00:37:55,719
Speaker 1: Like she she that's a SmackDown. That's a SmackDown back

664
00:37:55,719 --> 00:37:58,160
Speaker 1: in this time. And she was a tough Boston broad

665
00:37:58,520 --> 00:38:01,600
Speaker 1: and that's inspiring too. You know, if we're if we're

666
00:38:01,640 --> 00:38:06,680
Speaker 1: her potential banking clients who don't know we're victims, then

667
00:38:06,800 --> 00:38:10,680
Speaker 1: you would think, finally, someone standing up to these I'll

668
00:38:10,719 --> 00:38:13,480
Speaker 1: just say this might be skirting the line because we're

669
00:38:13,560 --> 00:38:15,520
Speaker 1: family show, but she's standing up to people who are

670
00:38:15,520 --> 00:38:18,120
Speaker 1: being a bunch of dicks, and it's hard to get

671
00:38:18,120 --> 00:38:22,200
Speaker 1: mad at that bunch of dicks being dicks. There we go, So,

672
00:38:22,760 --> 00:38:27,400
Speaker 1: as you said, she reaches this height of financial success

673
00:38:27,480 --> 00:38:32,759
Speaker 1: for her. But this can't last forever, right, It's unsustainable. Right.

674
00:38:33,160 --> 00:38:36,160
Speaker 1: The money will run out. There will not be enough

675
00:38:36,200 --> 00:38:39,239
Speaker 1: money to pay these returns at some point. And the

676
00:38:39,280 --> 00:38:42,080
Speaker 1: press knew that, and why they didn't realize that about

677
00:38:42,120 --> 00:38:45,640
Speaker 1: Ponzi is mind boggling. I mean, their problem with hers.

678
00:38:46,200 --> 00:38:49,640
Speaker 1: She went from you know, this poor divorced fortune teller

679
00:38:49,880 --> 00:38:52,719
Speaker 1: to a rich person in six months or whatever. Same

680
00:38:52,800 --> 00:38:55,360
Speaker 1: with Ponzi, but he was celebrated for it. Yeah, I

681
00:38:55,400 --> 00:38:59,000
Speaker 1: think maybe because of his gender, maybe, and something to

682
00:38:59,040 --> 00:39:00,719
Speaker 1: do with it if I that he wore a suit

683
00:39:01,239 --> 00:39:04,240
Speaker 1: instead of address. I think it really freaked people out

684
00:39:04,280 --> 00:39:06,719
Speaker 1: that this woman was like daring to go against the

685
00:39:06,719 --> 00:39:09,440
Speaker 1: status quo, and we were immediately suspicious of her and

686
00:39:09,480 --> 00:39:12,800
Speaker 1: started digging into her business. Whereas Ponzi, it took forever

687
00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:14,959
Speaker 1: for them to even think anything was up. Everyone wanted

688
00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:17,280
Speaker 1: to support him, and they thought he was just the best.

689
00:39:17,280 --> 00:39:19,360
Speaker 1: He was cheered when he'd like gout of his limo,

690
00:39:19,560 --> 00:39:23,759
Speaker 1: you know, And no one from what I saw in

691
00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:26,120
Speaker 1: the articles about Ponzi from back in the day said

692
00:39:26,200 --> 00:39:28,920
Speaker 1: much about his appearance beyond he had nice suits and

693
00:39:29,040 --> 00:39:33,400
Speaker 1: nice cars and nice furniture and whatever. But once the

694
00:39:33,480 --> 00:39:38,839
Speaker 1: reporters start getting on house case. You know, they say

695
00:39:39,360 --> 00:39:42,359
Speaker 1: she is short, fat, very ugly, and so illiterate as

696
00:39:42,400 --> 00:39:45,239
Speaker 1: to be unable to write an English sentence or to

697
00:39:45,320 --> 00:39:51,160
Speaker 1: speak without making shameful blunders. Another article said she's cross eyed,

698
00:39:51,400 --> 00:39:54,200
Speaker 1: all kinds of things about how she looks, which I

699
00:39:54,239 --> 00:39:56,399
Speaker 1: don't understand how that has anything to do with her

700
00:39:56,920 --> 00:39:59,799
Speaker 1: ability to be a banker, because at the time, like

701
00:39:59,840 --> 00:40:02,160
Speaker 1: I said, you could just open a bank, so who

702
00:40:02,160 --> 00:40:04,080
Speaker 1: cares if you're ugly. You know, it reminds me of

703
00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:06,680
Speaker 1: another story we did on Stuff they Don't want you

704
00:40:06,680 --> 00:40:09,359
Speaker 1: to know, our other show about marm Mandel Bomb, who

705
00:40:09,400 --> 00:40:12,359
Speaker 1: was like this kind of madam of like New York

706
00:40:12,400 --> 00:40:16,880
Speaker 1: crime syndicate things, Queen of Fences, and she had a

707
00:40:17,320 --> 00:40:21,040
Speaker 1: school for pickpockets to teach. She was almost like a

708
00:40:21,120 --> 00:40:24,000
Speaker 1: real life Fagan from Oliver, Like, had this kind of

709
00:40:24,040 --> 00:40:26,560
Speaker 1: like all her little kind of urchins that would suit

710
00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:30,919
Speaker 1: send out and you know, they would uh graduate from

711
00:40:30,960 --> 00:40:33,520
Speaker 1: like pickpocketing to safe cracking, and you know, it was

712
00:40:33,520 --> 00:40:37,200
Speaker 1: almost like an X Men school for petty crime. Um.

713
00:40:37,200 --> 00:40:40,359
Speaker 1: But she was bashed in the press in that same way,

714
00:40:40,400 --> 00:40:42,759
Speaker 1: and they took pot shots at her appearance and and

715
00:40:42,800 --> 00:40:45,520
Speaker 1: stuff like that, and uh, it's just really interesting the

716
00:40:45,520 --> 00:40:49,000
Speaker 1: way the press was so gross and cruel back in

717
00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:51,560
Speaker 1: those days. I mean, not that it's not it'd be

718
00:40:51,640 --> 00:40:53,920
Speaker 1: nice if it were past tense, right right, But we

719
00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:57,319
Speaker 1: still see this now. And Chelsea you you shared a

720
00:40:58,440 --> 00:41:04,280
Speaker 1: some fantastic research, uh with us from a historian, Robinholsart,

721
00:41:04,640 --> 00:41:10,720
Speaker 1: who talks about the weird amnesia that our culture has

722
00:41:10,760 --> 00:41:13,080
Speaker 1: about Sarah Howe. Because if we're looking at it, it

723
00:41:13,080 --> 00:41:15,960
Speaker 1: should be called a house scheme, right, and not a scheme.

724
00:41:16,880 --> 00:41:19,400
Speaker 1: She was just as successful, and she actually did it

725
00:41:19,440 --> 00:41:21,919
Speaker 1: for longer. She did it for three whole years. Yeah,

726
00:41:22,000 --> 00:41:26,080
Speaker 1: so she did it longer. She's more successful. Um. Yeah,

727
00:41:26,120 --> 00:41:30,799
Speaker 1: she opened multiple branches, multiple branches. She did it in

728
00:41:31,000 --> 00:41:35,360
Speaker 1: spite of opposition from society rather than with the aid

729
00:41:35,480 --> 00:41:39,279
Speaker 1: of society at the time. So what happens to what

730
00:41:39,600 --> 00:41:42,359
Speaker 1: what happens to her at the end? What what would

731
00:41:42,400 --> 00:41:45,799
Speaker 1: we call her legacy? What do we I mean we

732
00:41:45,880 --> 00:41:49,799
Speaker 1: know so little about her early life for sure? Does

733
00:41:49,840 --> 00:41:52,920
Speaker 1: she fade out of history? Does she I don't know

734
00:41:53,239 --> 00:41:56,640
Speaker 1: exactly about her death, but I do know, like PONSI,

735
00:41:56,719 --> 00:41:59,200
Speaker 1: she went to prison for not very long three years

736
00:42:00,120 --> 00:42:02,680
Speaker 1: and three years later, when she got out, she started

737
00:42:02,719 --> 00:42:06,279
Speaker 1: another bank, the Woman's Bank, and did the same thing,

738
00:42:06,920 --> 00:42:09,759
Speaker 1: and she did that for two more years. How she

739
00:42:09,920 --> 00:42:13,640
Speaker 1: was allowed to do that, I really do not understand.

740
00:42:13,680 --> 00:42:16,319
Speaker 1: It's in the same town, and as far as I know,

741
00:42:16,400 --> 00:42:19,040
Speaker 1: she didn't change her name or anything, so she didn't

742
00:42:19,120 --> 00:42:23,880
Speaker 1: learn a lesson. Like all Ponzi scheme people, she probably

743
00:42:23,920 --> 00:42:26,520
Speaker 1: had no remorse and honestly felt like she was helping

744
00:42:26,520 --> 00:42:31,279
Speaker 1: women with this. Eventually she got caught again, um, and

745
00:42:31,320 --> 00:42:35,040
Speaker 1: then she went back to her earlier scheme of fortune telling.

746
00:42:35,760 --> 00:42:38,640
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe she actually was clairvoyant and that wasn't

747
00:42:38,640 --> 00:42:42,240
Speaker 1: a scheme, But I think she was probably still swindling people,

748
00:42:42,360 --> 00:42:47,600
Speaker 1: but using the same skills, reading people, appealing to their emotions,

749
00:42:47,680 --> 00:42:52,400
Speaker 1: getting them to trust her, and predicting probably things like

750
00:42:52,480 --> 00:42:56,160
Speaker 1: you're gonna make a million dollars some day or whatever. Yeah,

751
00:42:56,200 --> 00:42:58,479
Speaker 1: people like that kind of fortune, you know what I mean.

752
00:42:59,320 --> 00:43:04,880
Speaker 1: And people are sort of paying for the feeling of success,

753
00:43:04,920 --> 00:43:07,880
Speaker 1: you know, they want that million dollars worth of dreams.

754
00:43:08,239 --> 00:43:10,200
Speaker 1: You know. It's funny. We did an episode not too

755
00:43:10,239 --> 00:43:13,800
Speaker 1: long ago about Houdini and how he every city he

756
00:43:13,840 --> 00:43:17,879
Speaker 1: would go to, he would like basically out these mediums

757
00:43:17,880 --> 00:43:20,640
Speaker 1: and like these uh you know, fake clairvoyance. And he

758
00:43:20,760 --> 00:43:23,120
Speaker 1: had a woman that worked for him who the episode

759
00:43:23,120 --> 00:43:25,920
Speaker 1: was about, who was kind of his like detective, who

760
00:43:25,920 --> 00:43:28,560
Speaker 1: would go secretly to the towns before he got there

761
00:43:28,960 --> 00:43:31,720
Speaker 1: and you know, poses like a person getting a reading

762
00:43:32,160 --> 00:43:34,560
Speaker 1: and the real work, and she did all the legwork

763
00:43:34,600 --> 00:43:36,440
Speaker 1: to figure out the tricks they were using, and then

764
00:43:36,440 --> 00:43:39,000
Speaker 1: if they're his show, he would call them out. Like

765
00:43:39,080 --> 00:43:41,000
Speaker 1: his mother had passed and there was a period where

766
00:43:41,040 --> 00:43:43,560
Speaker 1: he really believed in psychic abilities and then when he

767
00:43:43,600 --> 00:43:47,120
Speaker 1: realized it was all, you know, scam, it really offended

768
00:43:47,200 --> 00:43:49,759
Speaker 1: him on a very like personal level. So he took

769
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:52,440
Speaker 1: it as this like cause to like, I'm gonna expose

770
00:43:52,520 --> 00:43:54,560
Speaker 1: all of you frauds. Pretty interesting. So it probably would

771
00:43:54,560 --> 00:43:59,640
Speaker 1: have been right around that time. So with this in mind, Uh, Chelsea,

772
00:44:00,360 --> 00:44:02,600
Speaker 1: what do you think we should do in the modern

773
00:44:02,719 --> 00:44:06,440
Speaker 1: day when we hear people refer to these kinds of

774
00:44:06,480 --> 00:44:09,719
Speaker 1: scams as Ponzi schemes. I have to be honest, you know,

775
00:44:09,880 --> 00:44:14,040
Speaker 1: I'm I am to a degree defending the legacy of Sarah,

776
00:44:14,040 --> 00:44:17,080
Speaker 1: how but we do have to mention, Okay, she's technically

777
00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:20,960
Speaker 1: one of the she's a bad She's an antagonist technically, right,

778
00:44:21,000 --> 00:44:24,200
Speaker 1: because she didn't actually help these people, though she may

779
00:44:24,200 --> 00:44:27,160
Speaker 1: have inspired them. But where where does this leave us?

780
00:44:27,200 --> 00:44:29,480
Speaker 1: Are we gonna Are we and all our fellow listeners

781
00:44:29,520 --> 00:44:31,880
Speaker 1: going to be the people at house parties when we

782
00:44:31,920 --> 00:44:33,840
Speaker 1: hear the phrase Ponzi scheme? Are we going to be

783
00:44:33,880 --> 00:44:40,520
Speaker 1: the actualities? Yeah? Well, you know there's this feeling that, well,

784
00:44:40,560 --> 00:44:45,200
Speaker 1: in any area, there's always the man who's the symbol

785
00:44:45,320 --> 00:44:49,800
Speaker 1: for greatness and achieving whatever it was, and then there's

786
00:44:49,880 --> 00:44:53,440
Speaker 1: always some unsong woman who did it first and wasn't

787
00:44:53,440 --> 00:44:57,640
Speaker 1: recognized and was torn to shreds in the press. But

788
00:44:58,680 --> 00:45:04,000
Speaker 1: maybe that's good because people don't assume women are gonna

789
00:45:04,200 --> 00:45:08,200
Speaker 1: pull off great things, even great crimes. They don't assume

790
00:45:08,760 --> 00:45:12,200
Speaker 1: a woman will take advantage of trust in this way

791
00:45:12,640 --> 00:45:16,960
Speaker 1: we think of women is more trustworthy. Right, So maybe

792
00:45:17,680 --> 00:45:21,000
Speaker 1: in honor of all of the women out there starting

793
00:45:21,000 --> 00:45:25,000
Speaker 1: their own Ponzi schemes right now, we keep Sarah how

794
00:45:25,040 --> 00:45:27,919
Speaker 1: on the down low and let them, you know, get

795
00:45:27,960 --> 00:45:30,399
Speaker 1: that heated pool for a little while. I think that's

796
00:45:30,400 --> 00:45:35,560
Speaker 1: a pretty solid takeaway. Beautiful, beautiful, thank you so much

797
00:45:35,640 --> 00:45:37,719
Speaker 1: for coming on this show. Now I'm gonna admit it.

798
00:45:38,160 --> 00:45:41,600
Speaker 1: I thought Ponsi was the Ponzi scheme originator. Yeah, this

799
00:45:41,680 --> 00:45:43,560
Speaker 1: is this, This is new information. You went down like

800
00:45:43,600 --> 00:45:46,880
Speaker 1: a Wikipedia rabbit hole and came up with some gold.

801
00:45:47,280 --> 00:45:50,799
Speaker 1: He has a more fun name too, so I get

802
00:45:50,880 --> 00:45:54,759
Speaker 1: that much is in a name. And speaking of names,

803
00:45:54,800 --> 00:45:57,759
Speaker 1: I want to shout out one more time your podcast,

804
00:45:58,040 --> 00:46:02,040
Speaker 1: Dear Young Rocker. Could you share with our fellow listeners

805
00:46:02,080 --> 00:46:07,239
Speaker 1: the best way to find the show? Well, it's available

806
00:46:07,440 --> 00:46:11,040
Speaker 1: on all the podcast places, including the I Heart radio app.

807
00:46:11,239 --> 00:46:13,719
Speaker 1: You knew that, Yes, And there is a Dear Young

808
00:46:13,800 --> 00:46:16,920
Speaker 1: Rocker dot com website that has lots of fun pictures

809
00:46:17,040 --> 00:46:20,240
Speaker 1: and more information about me and all the episodes, So

810
00:46:20,600 --> 00:46:22,880
Speaker 1: check that one out. And I'm also on Instagram at

811
00:46:22,880 --> 00:46:25,160
Speaker 1: Dear Young Rocker. Yeah, please do check it out. It's

812
00:46:25,160 --> 00:46:28,839
Speaker 1: a really great show. Um very much kind of a

813
00:46:28,880 --> 00:46:34,360
Speaker 1: personal um memoir almost of like your current self talking

814
00:46:34,400 --> 00:46:36,640
Speaker 1: to your younger self about how to kind of navigate

815
00:46:36,680 --> 00:46:40,920
Speaker 1: all the crazy emotions and trials and tribulations of being

816
00:46:41,000 --> 00:46:43,680
Speaker 1: kind of an outsider in high school and sort of

817
00:46:43,719 --> 00:46:46,440
Speaker 1: coming into your own as a creative person and as

818
00:46:46,800 --> 00:46:50,200
Speaker 1: a human adult. Yeah. For you know, anyone who's ever

819
00:46:50,280 --> 00:46:54,120
Speaker 1: felt like a weirdo. UM, it's for you, but they'll

820
00:46:54,160 --> 00:46:56,760
Speaker 1: take our word for it. Check it out today, don't

821
00:46:56,760 --> 00:47:00,840
Speaker 1: delay while you're on the internet of the ending Chelsea

822
00:47:00,920 --> 00:47:04,040
Speaker 1: and following dear young Rocker. You can also check out

823
00:47:04,040 --> 00:47:07,680
Speaker 1: my trustee co host and I as individuals on our

824
00:47:07,760 --> 00:47:12,359
Speaker 1: own uh versions of Ponzi schemes social media. I'm been

825
00:47:12,440 --> 00:47:15,720
Speaker 1: bulling on Instagram and I've been bullying hs W on Twitter.

826
00:47:15,840 --> 00:47:18,239
Speaker 1: You can find me exclusively on Instagram at how Now

827
00:47:18,360 --> 00:47:22,280
Speaker 1: Noel Brown. Big thanks to Chelsea for being our guests today.

828
00:47:22,320 --> 00:47:25,880
Speaker 1: Thank you so much so it's a pleasure. Huge thanks

829
00:47:25,880 --> 00:47:29,879
Speaker 1: to super producer Casey Pegram for always being our Huckleberry

830
00:47:30,160 --> 00:47:33,839
Speaker 1: are our main guy, um. Big thanks to Christopher haciotas

831
00:47:33,920 --> 00:47:37,680
Speaker 1: here in spirit as always, Jonathan Strickland, the notorious quister

832
00:47:37,800 --> 00:47:41,040
Speaker 1: and also a person of interest UM who may have

833
00:47:41,080 --> 00:47:43,479
Speaker 1: been doing some schemes like this in his time away

834
00:47:43,480 --> 00:47:45,880
Speaker 1: from the show. Who knows it feels like classic strict

835
00:47:45,920 --> 00:47:48,160
Speaker 1: and really told you this before a real sketch here

836
00:47:48,400 --> 00:47:51,560
Speaker 1: D and D alignment. He would be lawful evil so

837
00:47:51,600 --> 00:47:54,279
Speaker 1: he has a stickler for rules and technicalities. Why do

838
00:47:54,360 --> 00:47:56,640
Speaker 1: we feel like I'm warning you about this guy? Watch

839
00:47:56,640 --> 00:48:01,040
Speaker 1: out for him. So um, we also want to think,

840
00:48:01,040 --> 00:48:03,280
Speaker 1: of course, Gabe, who is going to be a period

841
00:48:03,320 --> 00:48:06,640
Speaker 1: on the show. We've got some more special guests lined up,

842
00:48:06,840 --> 00:48:09,600
Speaker 1: and we want to hear from you in the meantime.

843
00:48:09,880 --> 00:48:12,879
Speaker 1: What is what is your favorite villain that has been

844
00:48:12,920 --> 00:48:16,560
Speaker 1: forgotten by history? What's the most ridiculous con you've heard of?

845
00:48:16,680 --> 00:48:19,320
Speaker 1: You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, wherever and

846
00:48:19,360 --> 00:48:21,640
Speaker 1: tell us about it. Heck, what's your favorite con episode

847
00:48:21,680 --> 00:48:23,279
Speaker 1: we've done here on this show. I feel like we've

848
00:48:23,280 --> 00:48:24,560
Speaker 1: been doing a ton of them lately. We have that

849
00:48:24,640 --> 00:48:27,520
Speaker 1: Diamond con. I think we actually did an episode on

850
00:48:27,520 --> 00:48:29,680
Speaker 1: the guy who sold the Brooklyn Bridge? Did we really,

851
00:48:29,719 --> 00:48:32,200
Speaker 1: George Parker? I think we did. How do I not

852
00:48:32,239 --> 00:48:35,480
Speaker 1: remember this? I don't know? Man? Um, what kind of

853
00:48:35,520 --> 00:48:38,520
Speaker 1: con can you get away with? I'm slipping here? Oh,

854
00:48:38,560 --> 00:48:42,600
Speaker 1: I don't know. Um. Maybe something something corona based, Probably

855
00:48:42,920 --> 00:48:46,200
Speaker 1: something social media based. You get enough followers, get people

856
00:48:46,239 --> 00:48:50,120
Speaker 1: to think you're, you know, a chic or something. I

857
00:48:50,120 --> 00:48:53,399
Speaker 1: guess this has recently happened. You just kind of put

858
00:48:53,440 --> 00:48:56,680
Speaker 1: on the costume and people will let you into their

859
00:48:56,719 --> 00:49:01,360
Speaker 1: exclusive hotels and parties and on their jets. Nice. Nice,

860
00:49:01,880 --> 00:49:03,920
Speaker 1: I almost want to cut that part out so we

861
00:49:03,960 --> 00:49:07,480
Speaker 1: can try it before people learn about it. But in

862
00:49:07,560 --> 00:49:10,759
Speaker 1: the meantime, tune in for our next show, where we'll

863
00:49:10,760 --> 00:49:15,480
Speaker 1: have more strange tales, particularly No, you're you're so much

864
00:49:15,520 --> 00:49:18,120
Speaker 1: better at ending the show. Yeah, I think so, Thanks,

865
00:49:18,120 --> 00:49:20,439
Speaker 1: but I appreciate the vote of confidence. I just usually

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00:49:20,480 --> 00:49:30,960
Speaker 1: say we'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts

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00:49:30,960 --> 00:49:32,959
Speaker 1: for my heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,

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00:49:32,960 --> 00:49:36,080
Speaker 1: Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.