Nobody ever learns

Business Blunders features a modern swindler who nicely reproduced the original Ponzi’s methods and extravagance. As usual, he was caught only after doing lots of damage. Despite the endless publicity, nobody ever investigates.

When Racket Squad did a wonderful dramatization of Ponzi’s life and tricks in 1952, they carefully avoided mentioning the name. They called him Gaston Romaine, but the character obviously had an Italian accent and Italian friends. Ponzi himself died in 1949, so his heirs and associates must have remained vigilant. The show was partly accurate about the history, but misses or inverts some key facts in order to maintain the myth of the Brave Investigative Reporter.

In the TV show, a Philadelphia newspaper got suspicious and did an investigation, exposing Ponzi. Ponzi threatened the reporter with a libel suit, saying he had $500k in cash ready to pay lawyers. This stiffened the reporter’s spine and he investigated with more determination, finally Holding Ponzi Accountable. After the exposure the feds got involved and arrested him.

In reality, Ponzi had run several different schemes in various cities and got arrested and imprisoned each time. Early in this sequence a reporter started checking, and Ponzi sued and won $500k. The TV show exactly reversed this fact! After the win, the media entirely ignored him. The Boston reporter who finally exposed him started publishing AFTER the feds and state authorities were already working on the case, so he was likely to be safe.

The Wikipedia article includes another interesting fact. To document the early generic use of his name, it shows a 1920 ad by Washington Mutual in Seattle saying “Don’t be Ponzied”. In 2008 Washington Mutual was taken down for running its own scheme.

Nobody ever learns.

Footnote: Unsurprisingly it was Post Office inspectors who started the investigation. Ponzi was not only using the mail to advertise, his scheme was supposedly based on buying and selling Postal Reply Coupons. The post office knew how many PRCs were being sold, and realized that the number needed to maintain Ponzi’s payouts was millions of times beyond the amount actually sold.

PRCs don’t get a lot of (heh) credit now. Before web-based payment services like Paypal, PRCs were a convenient instrument for small international transactions. They were a safe universal currency. The PO finally stopped selling them in 2013.

Even more unsurprisingly, ElonTrump wants to fully privatize the Post Office, which would conveniently delete its inspector function. This interview with the head of the postal workers union is outstanding. He describes the ElonTrump threat accurately and ALSO says that the PO could and should be using its unique skills to help ordinary people. He would like to see the Postal Savings Bank restored. It used to provide banking services for poor people who were beneath the snooty noses of the bankers. He’d also like to see the PO using its universal coverage to help more in disasters. THIS IS THE BEST WAY TO ANSWER A PSYCHOPATH. It’s the way FDR answered Wall Street, and it’s the way Canada is answering Trump. Take full advantage of your own unique skills, serve ordinary people better than before. Remove the pressures that drive people toward fakers like Ponzi or Trump.