Hoax, Fraud, Trickery, And Scams - The Marvelous, Magnificent Soap Opera Of America

Most Americans would like to think that their country, 'A Shining City On A Hill' as Ronald Reagan put it, is a place where exceptionalism is ordinary, where good faith is the currency of the land, and where the ancient Roman values of honesty, courage, respect, honor, justice, and compassion are universal. 

After all, we won WWII and freed the world from the perils of Nazism and Japanese imperialism and have stood tall before the world, unmatched as a model of democracy and free enterprise. 

America would be a bloody dull place if all that were true, 365 days of Sunday Mass, faithful husbands, dutiful wives, well-behaved children, consideration and compassion for the elderly, and tight, unbreakable family units. Ivan's Devil in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov says it well:

So against the grain I serve to produce events and do what's irrational because I am commanded to. For all their indisputable intelligence, men take this farce as something serious, and that is their tragedy. They suffer, of course ... but then they live, they live a real life, not a fantastic one, for suffering is life. Without suffering what would be the pleasure of it? It would be transformed into an endless church service; it would be holy, but tedious 

Dostoevsky’s Devil is a vaudevillian, a comedian who serves to spice things up.  What would life be without me? he asks. “It would be holy, but tedious”.

The Devil is abroad in America, for there is no end to the foul play, devilishly plotted murders, vice, corruption, jealousy, suspicion and endless con games.

The old caricature of the used car salesman is back as the adman who promises health, wealth, and good fortune, the butcher who keeps his thumb on the scale, the travel photographer who knows all the angles, light, and positioning to show the Tuscan dump as a Renaissance gem, the scammer who sneaks up on you and steals your files, your bank account, and your credit. 

Mackintosh Peters was a snake oil salesmen in the Arizona Territory in the 1870s, and made a good living selling worthless gum Arabic and corn syrup mixtures to the Piute and Navajo.  'Works like a charm', Mack told the Indians, 'take a swig in the morning and one in the evening, and it'll cure what ails you'. 

Which was arthritis, impotence, scabies, catarrh, and suppuration and anything else he could conjure up.  He was long gone before the Indians knew they had been had, but the placebo effect has been around for centuries, so many of his customers told their friend and families how good they felt after only a day's dosage.  If for some reason he found himself back in the same village and was accosted by the Indians he had duped, he had a ready reply. 'Ahh, of course', he said.  'I said two swigs in the morning and two at night, not one.'

'What's a swig?' asked an elder of the tribe. 

'Why, like this', Mack said, swilling a half-bottle down in one gulp. 'Ya see, ya wasn't takin' nearly half as much', and with that, he lit out of town, his racks of phials and bottles clinking and rattling in the back seat of the wagon as he drove. 

'There's a sucker born every minute', said the circus impresario, P.T. Barnum, and with that under his belt, he made millions off the rubes who wandered into his tents.  His freak show was the most popular - two headed babies, bearded dwarves, and half-man, half-woman giants.  The gawkers always came back, sometimes the same day to see the unbelievable creatures assembled in Barnum's side show. 

Along the trail with Mack Peters were scores of shell game wizards and con artists of every kind, fleecing unsuspecting rural folk out of their money.  There were get-rich-quick schemes, virility potions, games of 'chance', temptingly easy card games, and more inventive scams you can imagine.  It seemed that the business of rural America in the early years was the scam. 

At the same time as the nation industrialized, there was plenty of room for bamboozling. Real estate agents, mortgage lenders, horse traders, and used car salesmen all made a bonanza.  It was remarkably easy to bilk money out of consumers in those days, and even at the highest level of finance, trickery and chicanery was rife. Property owners inflated prices, hid structural defects, paid off inspectors and politicians and ran off with thousands.  When the buildings sold collapsed or rotted, they were long gone. 

'Let the buyer beware' was the meme of the times, and beware he certainly had to be in an environment of endemic corruption, fraud, and larceny.  It was a free-for-all where if you were canny and deftly underhanded, you could become wealthy. 

Evangelism was another classic American scam.  Itinerant preachers, following in the footsteps of Macintosh Peters and his lot, bilked thousands from naive farmers who filled their revival tents hoping to find Jesus.  These preachers were masters at oratory, drama, and duplicity; and since they were dealing with a product which could never be examined or returned, their job easy. 

'Prayer', shouted Isaiah Jones. 'Prayer is the answer'.  Here he paused, wiped his brow, looked to the' billowing folds of the tent, and went on.  'And Jesus will listen.  He, the magnificent, the forgiving, the loving, and the merciful will come to you only if you ask him.  Get down on your knees...go ahead, get down right now and ask his forgiveness, pray for his intercession, ask him to come down to this very place and save your souls...'

Hundreds of worshipers flocked in the aisles, raising their arms in supplication as they made their way forward to the Reverend Jones.  Some shouted that they had found Jesus, that he had come among them, and that they were saved.  Others simply cried and shouted thanks and welcome.  It was a jamboree, a parade, a marvelous event and when it was over, Jones counted his reward. 

Today is no different, nor why should it be?  Scamming is part of the American ethos, our way of life, the rough edges of our competitive free market.  Con men use the same entrepreneurial energy as the honest businessman, only with subterfuge and underhandedness. 

You've got to hand it to Bernie Madoff who bilked $17 billion out of wealthy investors, many of whom were his Jewish friends, in a Ponzi scheme the likes of which federal investigators had never seen. When he was finally caught, there was no money found at all. 

Madoff orchestrated the largest Ponzi scheme in history, operating it for over 17 years. His firm initially functioned as a legitimate brokerage but later became a front for his fraudulent activities. Madoff promised consistent annual returns of ten-twenty percent regardless of market conditions, which attracted a wide range of investors, including wealthy individuals, hedge funds, and charities.

Madoff claimed to use a 'split-strike' conversion strategy to generate steady returns.  However this was largely a facade.  In reality he was not making the trades he reported.  Instead he used the money from new investors to pay returns to existing investors - the classic Ponzi operation. 

To maintain an illusion of a successful investment operation, Madoff instructed his employees to create fake trading records and account statements.  These documents suggested that his firm was engaged in extensive trading activities when this was not the case at all. 

One of the finest conmen in recent memory was Rudy Kurniawan, a young man who bilked credulous wine investors out of millions, selling them dreck in fancy, falsely aged bottles and convincing them it was the finest of Baron de Rothschild's personal collection.

Rudy had one of the finest wine palates ever, and it was this special talent which gave him the credibility he needed to fool others.  He included some very fine wine in his offerings, and often a legitimately great bottle of wine for future investors - all as cover for the scam which prosecutors called the spawn of Bernie Madoff. 

There is one inalterable rule of corruption - the more government spends on infrastructure and social programs, the more that will be siphoned off.  Before any completion of roads and bridges or before any brick in child welfare centers has been laid, contractors, municipal employees, program managers have taken their cut. 

The city council, Office Of Public Works, of major metropolitan city, authorized a $725 million contract to rebuilt perfectly good sidewalks in certain residential areas of the city.  These sidewalks were torn up and replaced with new ones of no better quality, and both contractor and city officials.  They followed it up with a Make Our Neighborhoods Safe program to tear up the city's alleys - the crisscrossing back ways that had characterized the residential neighborhoods since they were built - and made millions in kickbacks from it. 

The fraud recently discovered in Minnesota where Somali organizations took millions in federal COVID-era monies earmarked for childcare centers, and sent it back to Mogadishu.  The Biden Administration, so ineptly and venally interested in showing its sensitive response to the epidemic, poured non-accountable millions into municipal coffers monthly.  There was no oversight, no well-established record-keeping procedures.  All was done as a matter of faith; and only now is the extent of the fraud being unearthed. 

 

The Justice Department, waking up to the fact that if this happened in Minnesota, it probably happened in other states as well and has begun investigations in California which was a recipient of some of the largest federal grants. 

Now, every scam has a scammer and a scammee - it takes two to tango, and the network of corruption starts with an administration which is only looking for political returns and cares little for accountability. It only mattered that Joe Biden looked presidential and caring, treating his electoral base to millions in walkin' around money.  Such administered largesse is by nature corrupt, facilitating corruption on the other end. 

Washington DC Mayor Marion Barry was renowned for his municipal largesse - billions of white taxpayer money poured into the all-black wards of the city in return for their votes.  'Get over it', he told the voters of wealthy, white Ward 3 after he won an election hands down despite zero votes from it. 

Government is the only agency of a free market system which is never held financially accountable for its actions.   Billions go out the door and little is ever shown for it.  Worse, nothing by way of performance is asked.  If the principle of the thing was good, no questions about results need to be asked.  They are assumed. 

Is America a more corrupt country than others? Probably not although few countries have such an inbred, native tendency to scam, con, and trick.  What started in the Wild West, matured in the East, went up and down the socio-economic scale, and became endemic. 

If scamming is not quite the ethos of America, it comes close; and to look on the bright side, what would a life of universal honesty, fidelity, dignity, and compassion be like?  A thudding bore, that's what.  Politics without Mark Sanford who claimed he was hiking the Appalachian Trail while courting his Argentine mistress in Buenos Aires? Or without John Edwards who had an illegitimate child by his mistress and then asked his Chief of Staff to be the fall guy?  Or without Newt Gingrich who brought flowers to his dying wife in the hospital then hailed a cab to the Mayflower where he met his mistress for their weekly tryst?

Presidents from Washington to Trump have been caught napping in the crib of illicit lovers.  Sex is the ultimate aphrodisiac, said Henry Kissinger, and every politician takes advantage of it. 

Black Lives Matter, at the forefront of protests against white police murder of innocent black men, the organization which spawned lawn signs in every liberal neighborhood, which raised millions in donations, turned out to be one of the most venal, corrupt, and rotten items in Washington, a bigger than life channeling of the President of the DC Teachers' Union who bilked thousands out of the members' till to buy wigs and high heels. 

We live a marvelous, magical soap opera here in America. There is no place like it, no big top, no freak show, no vaudevillian act, no Borscht Belt tummler can possibly match the reality of what goes on.  We are the Devil's unwitting handmaidens, doing his tricky business every waking hour of the day.