Charles Ponzi The Documentary

Transcript
0:06 · Boston Massachusetts, 1920 a brash and colorful Italian immigrant Charles Ponzi promises investors
0:15 · that he can give them a 50% profit on their money in 45 days or double their money in 90
0:22 · days. He explains his idea, an arbitrage in the foreign exchange markets which seems low risk and
0:29 · highly profitable. Unlike most con men it appears that he may well have believed in his own scheme.
0:37 · Over a period of slightly less than a year he will cause financial calamity in Boston, cause multiple
0:43 · banks to fail and his name will go down in history as the most famous con man to ever exist.
0:52 · Today New York and London do battle to be the global center of finance - and Wall Street in
0:59 · New York is without a doubt the center of finance in the United States, but this was
1:04 · not always the case. Originally in the United States Philadelphia was the financial center,
1:11 · but by 1920 it had slipped and it was a toss-up now as to whether Boston or New York were the
1:18 · center of finance in the United States. Charles Ponzi arrived on the scene in Boston at the
1:25 · perfect time for a man like him, to his admirers he was a financial genius and to his detractors
1:32 · he was a fraud. His incredible rise would mark the first roar of the roaring twenties. The core idea
1:40 · that Ponzi came up with was actually a fairly smart idea that he stumbled across
1:45 · but as you'll learn he actually never got around to pursuing any real investments as he was just so busy running his scheme taking in money paying it out talking to the press and
1:55 · shopping on Newbury Street. The thing that really makes this story so interesting is that it's an
2:01 · unsolvable puzzle trying to work out what kind of a person ponzi actually was was he smart or was he
2:08 · a fool there are things that he did that a total fool could not have done he did actually come up
2:14 · with a kind of smart investment idea albeit one that could not have been run on any real scale
2:21 · and equally he was able to manage the logistics of a business with numerous employees and open
2:27 · branch offices all around the country that grew at a phenomenal rate. In addition he must have been
2:33 · an amazing salesperson we have to remember that all of this took place over around six months
2:39 · ponzi clearly got a lot done in that short period of time on the other hand it would
2:44 · appear that he was maybe not that bright a guy in that he seemed to fall for his own trick,
2:50 · he appeared to believe in himself right up until the end and he didn't seem to understand
2:56 · that there was no real way that any of this could work out for him or for anyone involved.
3:03 · The world and the United States in particular had changed a lot in the years leading up to
3:08 · the early 1920's. America was now a prosperous country where the idea that a penny saved is a
3:15 · penny earned had disappeared. Money was to be made fast easy and in large quantities. The
3:23 · newspapers of the time were filled with stories of vast fortunes being made by entrepreneurs,
3:28 · stories of young girls marrying rich men and people inheriting huge fortunes from long-lost
3:34 · relatives. Prosperity was no longer the preserve of the well-born now everyone
3:40 · could become rich. If money didn't come fast enough you had to just go out and grab it.
3:46 · For promoters of get rich schemes this was the time to think big. It was a similar time to the
3:52 · tech boom of the late 1990s or the cryptocurrency mania of the late 2010s but on steroids.
4:03 · So first up what is a ponzi scheme? A lot of people confuse the idea of a ponzi scheme with
4:09 · a pyramid scheme, in a pyramid scheme participants only make money by recruiting more members there
4:16 · are many different kinds of pyramid scheme but the two most basic are product-based and so-called
4:23 · naked pyramid schemes. In a naked pyramid scheme no product is sold, with a product-based
4:30 · pyramid scheme the concept is the same but it is disguised as a legitimate direct sales opportunity
4:38 · in either case a pyramid scheme usually involves each person recruiting 10 additional people
4:45 · who usually have to pay some sort of initiation fee let's say a hundred dollars and then
4:51 · they have to find 10 additional people it sounds simple enough but here's the problem let's say the
5:00 · initial 10 recruits each find 10 more people those 100 recruits will then have to find
5:07 · 10 recruits each to make nine hundred dollars that means they have to find a thousand people willing
5:14 · to sign up for the program and if they somehow do find a thousand people that next level of the
5:20 · pyramid will need to sign up ten thousand people to make a profit eventually there won't be enough
5:26 · recruits at the bottom of the pyramid to support the level above it that's when the pyramid topples
5:32 · and everyone at the bottom loses their investment once you get about 10 layers down the pyramid you
5:41 · exceed the entire population of the planet a ponzi scheme is quite different to that and what makes
5:48 · it fascinating is that it's usually all about one person usually a tremendously charismatic
5:55 · and tremendously interesting person who can convince people that you can trust them with all
6:01 · of your money and all of your family's money and that they can return it to you with an enormous
6:07 · interest rate well beyond what a reasonable person might expect usually in a short period of time
6:15 · in ponzi's case the promise was to double your money in three months it was not a scheme invented by ponzi but it was a scheme that he mastered before his scheme broke
6:27 · and was all over the global press in 1920 the scheme was known as robbing peter to pay paul
6:37 · ponzi was not taking all of that money and blowing it on a lavish lifestyle as you may expect
6:43 · although he did use some of it that way he was taking the money setting it aside
6:49 · and when an earlier investor came in to collect their initial investment plus the 100 return
6:56 · he would give the new investors money to the old investor so the scheme involves
7:01 · paying the early investors out of the money that comes in from later investors
7:09 · the money just churns in and out until the scheme eventually goes bankrupt usually the goal of a
7:15 · ponzi schemer is to attract enough money for new investors until you have a huge pile of
7:21 · money and then you can skip town and live off your ill-gotten games take the money and run basically
7:28 · as you will see that's not what charles ponzi ended up doing in fact it would appear that ponzi
7:35 · possibly never intended to do anything like that he had a huge belief in his ability to make money
7:42 · with a variety of investment schemes that he was constantly dreaming up and he seemed to believe
7:47 · that he could pay off all of his investors and become hugely wealthy himself he just needed time
7:57 · the core idea that ponzi came up with was actually a fairly smart idea
8:03 · that he stumbled across but as you will learn he never really got around to pursuing any real investments as he was so busy running his scheme
8:15 · in order to understand Ponzi we must first understand the world in which he lived
8:21 · 1920 was a remarkable time in America a time of true change and the dawn of the modern world world
8:29 · war one had just ended and people had suffered through the deprivation of war and felt that it
8:35 · was now time to get rich to have fun and to party prohibition was in effect but prohibition had
8:43 · a funny effect on the American people instead of improving the morality of the country as one might
8:49 · have expected prohibition instead made it feel okay for people to break the law it undermined the
8:56 · values of Americans who were normally law-abiding citizens because prohibition was so widely broken
9:04 · people began questioning which laws it made sense to abide by and which ones were there to be broken
9:10 · there was actually a huge spike in crime over the years of prohibition in the united states
9:18 · all kinds of seemingly amazing almost magical technologies had been invented in recent years
9:25 · airplanes automobiles and the inventors of these technologies had become wealthy beyond belief
9:32 · the stock market was ramping up companies were all making money and the hardship of the great
9:38 · war was well in the past there was a boom in immigration and cities like Boston and New
9:44 · York were filled with new and different immigrant groups with very different ideas some were viewed
9:50 · as anarchists and there was a lot of chaos women had just gotten the right to vote in august 1920.
9:59 · for the first time in American history there were more people living in cities than farming in the countryside it was a time when money became a driving force in American life
10:10 · more so than at any time in american history ponzi was born in lugo italy in 1882 to a family
10:23 · that was rich in name only all of his mother's family had don ardana in front of their names
10:30 · which tied them to the duchy of parma so they were italian aristocrats but by the time charles
10:36 · was born the money was all gone when charles was born his father was working as a postman
10:43 · his mother imelda ponzi clung onto this aristocratic heritage and as charles would
10:49 · say she spent his whole childhood spinning castles in the air she would tell him how he was the one
10:55 · who would restore the family name and lift them back up to their rightful position in society
11:02 · that idea stuck with him his whole life it stuck with him long after his scheme had collapsed
11:10 · some of his mother's ideas really went to charles's head and using his family's meager
11:16 · savings he attended the university of rome it's worth noting that at the time less than
11:22 · five percent of the population attended university at all unlike today where one in three americans
11:29 · has a bachelor's degree so this was quite an opportunity that his parents had given him
11:36 · a true ticket to the upper class instead of studying at the university charles spent his days
11:42 · in cafes he drank and gambled his nights away with a group of young wealthy aristocratic students
11:50 · he bought expensive clothes and refined his tastes attending the opera he would
11:55 · pick up restaurant tabs for his friends and the pretty girls that they met when they were out
12:00 · and he quickly ran through all of his family savings trying to impress people and seem
12:06 · wealthier and better bred than he actually was in desperation his family scraped together
12:12 · their last scraps of money around two hundred and twenty dollars gave him two hundred dollars
12:19 · in cash and spent twenty dollars on a first class ticket on a ship to boston ponzi knew
12:25 · that he had disappointed his mother but he was sure that he would make his fortune in america
12:33 · on the ship charles carried on as normal however and by the time he arrived in
12:38 · boston he had gambled away the 200 which was supposed to get him started in the new world
12:45 · his family having foreseen this had pre-paid for a train ticket from boston to pittsburgh where
12:52 · he could stay with a relative being out of money he couldn't even get a cab to the train station and ruined his fine clothes walking through the mud from the port
13:04 · Charles was off to a poor start he found a few odd jobs waiting tables and things like
13:10 · that and traveled up and down the east coast of the united states doing his best to become rich
13:17 · he still held on to his mother's dream that he would bring back the family's good name
13:22 · after a while Charles washed up in Montreal Canada and found a job working at a bank
13:28 · called banco Zarossi by this time he was using the name Charles Bianchi
13:36 · Banco Zarossi was run by a colorful Italian named Luigi Zarossi. Canada was in the midst
13:43 · of a wave of immigration from italy and all of the poor italian laborers needed a safe place
13:50 · to keep their wages and a way of sending some money back to their families in italy
13:55 · but the big banks were not interested in these small accounts it's worth noting that there was already an italian bank in montreal that was serving these customers
14:05 · so zarosi in order to compete for accounts would offer a much higher interest rate at the time
14:11 · the other bank would pay 2 interest which means that they would take the money in invested in
14:17 · italian securities that paid three percent and that one percent difference was their profit
14:24 · zarosi started paying depositors not just the full three percent interest available through investing
14:30 · in italian securities he also paid an additional three percent as a bonus so the customers were
14:37 · getting a return of six percent which is about triple what they could have earned elsewhere asked
14:43 · how he could do this zarosi explained that the greedy bankers at other firms were just ripping
14:48 · off their customers and he was simply sharing the bank's earnings fairly with his customers this was
14:55 · a line that ponzi would later use when he was quizzed by reporters in boston about his scheme
15:01 · of course how this all worked out was that zarosi was unable to pay these high interest rates and
15:07 · quickly started using one customer's new deposits to pay out another customer who was withdrawing
15:13 · money in what was at the time known as a robbing peter to pay paul scheme as long as more money
15:20 · kept coming in than was going out customers didn't notice and they were just delighted to be getting
15:26 · such high returns on their savings in 1908 less than a year after ponzi had come to work for him
15:34 · zarosi packed a bag full of money and fled on his own to mexico leaving his whole family behind
15:43 · ponzi made a terrible mistake he forged a check to have some travelling money he was
15:49 · caught almost immediately when he arrived home after buying a new wardrobe of clothes
15:55 · he was then sent to prison for more than two years as soon as he got out of prison
16:01 · he decided to help some other italians who didn't speak english who were trying to cross
16:07 · the border into the united states and ponzi got caught once again his claim was that he
16:14 · was just helping them out as a translator and that no money had changed hands ponzi
16:20 · only 17 days out of prison was sent back to prison this time in the united states to atlanta georgia
16:28 · where he spent two years for smuggling aliens into the country the immigrants all testified
16:35 · against him as part of a plea deal and afterwards all of them were set free many men would have been
16:42 · broken by this but that wasn't the stuff that charles was made of when he got out of prison
16:49 · he heads out to a small mining town in alabama and he came up with what seemed to be a very good idea
16:56 · he decided to start a utility company that would provide water and power to all of the mining towns
17:04 · it seems like it might have been a good idea and a lot of people claimed that it probably would have worked out for him he was going to sell stock in the company while he was planning this he
17:16 · was working as a nurse to make ends meet he was just about ready to launch this company when he
17:22 · heard about a local woman named Pearl Gossett who had been horribly burned in a kerosene explosion
17:29 · pearl needed skin grafts otherwise she might lose her limbs or she might even die
17:38 · when ponzi was told this story he said to the doctor how much skin does she need the doctor
17:45 · said quite a lot and ponzi replied well you can take all you need from me he did not know this
17:52 · woman but in an act of great generosity donated 220 square inches of skin which was taken from
18:00 · his back and legs he would be horribly scarred for the rest of his life over this act it was a
18:06 · generous and heroic act the community nominated him for a Carnegie heroism prize charles was in
18:14 · great pain and battled infections for months after the operation he spent a total of about
18:21 · four months in hospital and by the time he got out another company had been launched to provide
18:27 · electricity and water to the mines ponzi had to return to the drawing board he needed a new idea
18:35 · it's impossible to know if ponzi's utility company idea would have actually worked out at all he may
18:42 · never have been able to raise enough capital he may never have had the specific knowledge
18:47 · necessary to set up and run such a complicated business like a utility he possibly didn't have
18:53 · the ability to manage all of the logistics but the one thing that we can see at this point in the
19:00 · story is ponzi's entrepreneurial spirit and how he always thinks big he wasn't planning on opening a
19:07 · grocery store or working his way up at one of the mining companies instead he plan on launching a
19:12 · power and water utility a major type of business that would have been quite high tech at the time
19:19 · we're also able to see a lot of the contradictions in his character at this point in the story there
19:25 · are numerous stories of his generosity throughout his life stories about how he would maybe pick up
19:31 · the tap at a restaurant when he went out with his friends and return home and have no money to pay
19:36 · the rent for the rest of the month or how he would walk by an ice cream store see children outside
19:43 · and go inside and buy ice cream for the whole crowd he had this unusual character he wasn't an
19:50 · obvious greedy villain and this is kind of what makes the story so good the fact that he had this
19:56 · huge contradiction in his character means that we can't just look at him and see a simple con man
20:02 · and swindler he was much more than that and it's really a struggle to understand what he was trying
20:09 · to do or what was possibly going through his head at really any point in this story ponzi once again
20:16 · down but not out headed back to boston in 1917 and at this point his luck finally seemed to change
20:25 · his first bit of luck would be meeting rose rose genecco was the italian-american daughter
20:33 · of a fruit merchant near faneuil hall in boston she was a beautiful girl about 17 years younger
20:39 · than charles and ponzi fell madly in love with her and rose fell madly in love with him
20:46 · rose loved him and based on their letters it's cleared that all she wanted was charles ponzi
20:52 · she just wanted a small home children and a humble lifestyle but ponzi transferred
20:58 · all of his dreams onto her his dreams of great wealth that he had inherited from his mother
21:04 · he wanted to buy furs and jewelry for rose he wanted her to live in a huge house with
21:10 · servants and chauffeur-driven cars he would tell rose of all of his dreams and explain
21:16 · his complex money-making plans and describe the lavish lifestyle they would live together
21:22 · and rose would listen politely and remind him that she did not need money to be happy
21:30 · ponzi went back to his old ways doing everything he could to get rich he even took over his
21:36 · in-laws fruit business for a while but that didn't work in truth the business was already
21:42 · on the rocks and ponzi tried to turn it around but it failed through no real fault of his own
21:51 · after the genneco family fruit stand had gone bankrupt ponzi took his last savings and rented a
21:58 · small office in downtown boston on the fifth floor of 27 school street the niles building which is
22:05 · still there today and it was here that ponzi came up with his big idea ponzi could just about afford
22:14 · his office rent and he could not afford furniture so he went to a local second-hand furniture dealer
22:21 · picked out around 350 dollars worth of furniture and then struck a deal with the owner joseph
22:28 · daniels that he would put fifty dollars down and pay five dollars a month for the furniture
22:35 · ponzi planned at first on running an import and export business where he would help international
22:41 · companies trade across borders but because he had no contacts of his own he looked into advertising
22:48 · in foreign trade magazines when charles saw how expensive the advertising would be
22:55 · he changed his plan and decided to open a magazine of his own and sell advertising he would call the
23:02 · magazine trader's guide and print it in multiple languages he would mail the magazine out for free
23:10 · and sell advertising in it he quickly found himself unable to come up with sufficient
23:17 · editorial content to fill a whole magazine and he was also unable to sell enough advertising
23:24 · trader's guide was about to go bankrupt before even publishing its first magazine
23:30 · sitting in his office alone ponzi leafed through the mail and saw that he had received
23:36 · a letter from spain requesting a copy of the magazine enclosed in the envelope was
23:41 · something he had never seen before a postal reply coupon ponzi held the coupon in his hand
23:48 · and felt that his whole life had led him to this point this was how he would become rich
23:56 · so what was it that ponzi found so interesting in this coupon ponzi realized that this coupon
24:04 · was possibly the only form of international currency in the world
24:14 · in 1906 63 countries had gotten together and they came up with these coupons as a
24:21 · way to make it easier to send mail across national borders the coupon
24:26 · allowed a person in one country to send a stamped self-addressed envelope to a person in another
24:33 · before these coupons it was close to impossible except at prohibitive expense to do such a thing
24:42 · these coupons have value in almost every country in the world but its only value however is to buy
24:49 · stamps now if you remember world war one had just ended after the war certain countries currencies
24:58 · had moved significantly in value since this deal had been struck in 1906. a number of european
25:05 · currencies had plummeted over that period so it was possible to go to europe buy a dollar's
25:12 · worth of these coupons and return to the united states and buy five or ten dollars worth of stamps
25:19 · this is what traders refer to as an arbitrage an opportunity to make a risk-free profit
25:26 · the main problem that charles faced was that you could not turn these stamps back into dollars
25:33 · you would just have to buy stamps and then sell those stamps
25:39 · on top of that back then it would have been expensive to travel back and forth with all of these coupons nonetheless it was a great idea ponzi realized that done in enough size this could
25:52 · make him rich beyond belief all he needed to do was raise a lot of money travel to europe buy
26:00 · these coupons bring them back and somehow convert them into cash he took this idea with him around
26:07 · the corner to the Hannover Trust Company and asked to take out a loan to do this the bank's president
26:15 · was quite rude to him and basically threw him out of the office ponzi was told that his small
26:21 · account was more trouble than it was worth and that he would certainly not be getting a loan
26:28 · charles tried a number of other boston banks and none were interested he asked friends for
26:33 · loans but they were all like him and had no money to spare so he made the decision that
26:39 · if the banks would not help him he would just have to sell this idea directly to the public
26:48 · ponzi decided that he could raise money this way as long as he offered people a very high return
26:55 · as otherwise they would simply invest their savings with more established banks so what
27:01 · he did was he set up a company and he named it the securities exchange company or the sec
27:08 · now it is worth noting that this was more than a decade before the securities exchange commission
27:14 · came about in 1932 so while the name sounds quite amusing to modern ears
27:21 · it would not have been so controversial back then
27:27 · ponzi understood that he hadn't figured out the logistics yet he did know he had a great idea
27:33 · and it seemed to be both legal and possible to execute but he knew that it might be difficult
27:41 · he had to get all of these coupons ship them back to the USA and somehow convert them into cash
27:48 · he had not figured out the details but he had spotted the opportunity
27:53 · he felt he could sort out the details over time
27:59 · charles must have felt that he might run into difficulties as he did quite an unusual thing when
28:04 · he incorporated the securities exchange company he incorporated with three names on the registration
28:11 · papers he put down the name of john dondero his wife's uncle as the president of the company
28:19 · john did not know about this and had no idea what was going on ponzi also put down his landlord from
28:26 · parma italy's name gugliemo bertoli who ponzi knew would have been long dead by this point in time
28:35 · finally ponzi put down his own name third on the company registration and listed his
28:42 · title just as one of the company managers ponzi may have expected things to go well
28:48 · but it appears that he also knew that he might have to evade investors at some point in time
28:54 · and claimed to just be an employee ponzi started offering what became widely known as
29:01 · ponzi notes he told his investors that he would take in any amount of money and pay 50 interest
29:09 · in 90 days shortly after that he changed it to say that he would pay the 50 interest in just 45 days
29:22 · there was huge and instant demand for these ponzi notes one of the amazing things is how quickly
29:28 · this scheme grew and then blew up everything happened in less than a year in fact about eight
29:34 · months from the first note being issued but in that time a huge amount of money came in offices
29:42 · were opened all over the united states it's quite amazing to look at what happened and to see how
29:48 · it happened in such a short period of time almost 100 orchestrated by one man there was no real team
29:57 · there were plenty of employees but just one person at the center of all of this charles ponzi
30:06 · in the first month of business charles brought in around 1 700 by early spring he was bringing in
30:13 · around 30 000 a week in new investments in june he brought in two and a half million dollars
30:20 · which in today's money is around 32 million dollars he had by then opened offices all
30:27 · over new england and was fielding phone calls on a daily basis from all over the country
30:33 · from people asking to be his agent in various cities there are a few side stories that you
30:40 · notice when looking at ponzi and his scheme one of which is that fraud attracts fraud
30:46 · other scoundrels noticed what ponzi was up to and opened an office right next door to him offering
30:53 · the exact same deal they just took advantage of the huge lines for ponzi's office they called
31:00 · themselves the old colony foreign exchange company ponzi knew that they were frauds and wanted them
31:07 · gone but there was not much he could do about them he could hardly call the authorities in and
31:12 · explain what is wrong with the deal they're offering it's the same deal he is offering
31:20 · another problem quickly reared its head ponzi had quickly paid off the used furniture dealer joseph
31:27 · daniels that we mentioned earlier daniel's however a deceitful man began to notice
31:33 · how busy ponzi had become daniel's reasoned to himself that ponzi must have used a small loan
31:39 · from the previous december to start a successful business he put it to ponzi that because of this
31:46 · he was entitled to more than the repayment he had received he was in fact a 50 owner in the business
31:54 · when ponzi sent him packing daniels hired a lawyer and filed a million-dollar lawsuit against ponzi
32:01 · daniel's lawyer also filed an attachment against five of ponzi's bank accounts
32:07 · freezing about seven hundred thousand dollars of his cash when news of this lawsuit reached the
32:14 · press it caused a two-day run on the securities and exchange company this lingering lawsuit and
32:21 · frozen accounts would continue to cause trouble for ponzi for months towards the end ponzi ended
32:27 · up paying daniels a settlement of fifty thousand dollars in order to unfreeze his accounts
32:35 · most people in boston seem to want to invest at least something even people who didn't
32:40 · really believe in the story put a little bit of money in so that they could participate
32:46 · thinking of it as a lottery ticket other true believers put in everything they had even
32:52 · borrowing money to invest the note that you see on screen right now was owned by principio santisoso
33:00 · a reporter for the boston post he bought it for 200 in 1920 which is about 2 500
33:08 · in today's money principio invested but did not write anything about ponzi in the boston post not
33:16 · a word appeared in the press about ponzi for over a month after principio bought that note with his
33:23 · bank accounts bulging charles went on a shopping spree he invested some of the funds in businesses
33:30 · some in real estate loans to friends he even lent money to friends so that they could invest
33:36 · in ponzi notes his biggest and most important investment however involved gaining control of
33:43 · one or more banks charles started out by making some small investments in a few boston-based banks
33:50 · he figured that if he gained control of the banks he could weather any storms that may arise
33:56 · by using their reserves until he eventually managed to flip his business into being profitable
34:04 · hanover trust was the nearest bank to his school street office it had around five million
34:10 · dollars in assets this was the same bank whose president had been rude to him a few months ago
34:16 · when he applied for a loan to start up his trade magazine charles planned to take control of the
34:23 · bank and began by slowly buying up blocks of stock as they became available for sale at the same time
34:31 · he slowly increased his deposits in the bank quickly becoming by far their largest depositor
34:39 · charles then befriended a number of the existing shareholders many of them were italian like him he even lent some of the money so that they could invest in ponzi notes
34:51 · charles kept money at a variety of banks all over boston he had money at more than a dozen banks but
34:58 · his largest deposits were at the hannover trust around 2.7 million dollars in total
35:05 · a lot of money for a bank with assets of 5 million dollars hannover trust was planning to issue new
35:12 · stock around 2 000 shares ponzi walked into the bank shortly before the stock issue and asked to
35:20 · speak to the president of the bank he offered to buy every share of the newly issued stock
35:27 · the bank president paused taught for a moment and then explained that he had to decline this offer
35:33 · if i sold you all of these shares when they are combined with your current holdings you would
35:39 · then be the majority shareholder and have control of the bank that is just what i want said ponzi
35:46 · the conversation went back and forth but they were unable to come to an agreement
35:52 · as ponzi got up to leave he stuck his head back into the bank president's office and asked
35:58 · do you mind telling me what my current cash balance is here the president of the bank knew exactly what this meant he knew that if charles withdrew his 2.7
36:10 · million dollars much of which had been lent out to the bank's customers that the bank would be
36:15 · insolvent hanover trust quickly agreed to sell him three-quarters of the stock that he wanted
36:23 · and give him a board seat knowing that he would still be a minority shareholder they also got him
36:30 · to agree to give them 30 days notice in advance of withdrawing any funds so that they could deal with
36:36 · the request in an orderly manner the board of hanover trust were not aware that ponzi already
36:43 · had many of the major shareholders in his pocket hannover trust was now the bank of charles ponzi
36:52 · the scene on school street and pie alley where ponzi's offices were were a hive of
36:58 · activity people stood in line for hours to walk up to the teller window and deposit their money
37:05 · as time went by and ponzi showed an ability to pay early investors their principal and interest back
37:11 · his reputation grew of course many of the investors who were paid their money back
37:17 · quickly reinvested it often adding additional capital ponzi of course hadn't yet worked out how to do this trade with the international reply coupons
37:28 · so he robbed peter to pay paul using the money from later investors to pay early investors
37:35 · figuring that he could sort out the detail shortly enough of course very few people actually took
37:42 · their money out as they figured they could just wait another 90 days and double their money again
37:52 · ponzi not only seemed willing and able to pay people back but he had his bookkeeper send people postcards a few days before their money became due in order to
38:03 · remind them to come in and collect their money it made him look extremely credible to these people
38:09 · that he seemed to want them to collect their profits
38:15 · at this point ponzi could easily enough have taken the money and run he had a huge amount of money it
38:22 · was in banks all over boston held in his name had he taken it back to italy the u.s law enforcement
38:29 · would have been unable to extradite him at one point he had bought two tickets back to italy
38:36 · one for him and one for rose in order to return to italy to visit his mother and to take the
38:42 · honeymoon they could never have afforded before he had a certificate of deposit for one million
38:49 · dollars that he used to carry around in his suit pocket he could easily have fled but he did not
38:56 · at this point he was the toast of the city of boston he walked around town in the finest of
39:02 · clothes with a huge diamond tie pin and a gold-handled cane he was chauffeured in and
39:08 · out of work in a locomobile which was one of the finest coach-built cars available at the time
39:15 · the american equivalent of a rolls-royce he had paid thirteen thousand six hundred dollars for it
39:22 · which when inflation adjusted comes to around two hundred thousand dollars in today's money
39:28 · ponzi realized that if he left boston even just for a short holiday that people might
39:35 · think he had taken the money and ran instead of taking the holiday he cashed in the tickets
39:41 · and bought a ticket for his mother to bring her to boston
39:47 · ponzi set about buying a house for himself and rose and he looked at some of the finest
39:53 · homes available for sale rose wanted none of that she hated the idea of living in a
39:59 · huge ostentatious house filled with servants and got him to tone it down
40:05 · to a more modest but still very impressive home in lexington massachusetts a short commute to boston
40:12 · charles wanted a mansion for rose to live in but she wanted a home not a big place with great rooms
40:20 · the house is still there 19 slocum road in lexington massachusetts in fact it recently sold
40:28 · but with no mention of its history in the advertisement maybe it was seen as bad luck
40:34 · there are stories you can find about the hugely expensive renovations that he had done on the home
40:40 · but these are mostly untrue it was heated and air conditioned which would have been very unusual at the time some people described the home as having huge walls or a fence around it
40:51 · but once again that is untrue as you can see from photographs from the time and from today
40:58 · charles did not own the home for very long and rose was always trying to reduce his spending
41:05 · rose was known to frequently return the expensive gifts that charles bought for her to the stores
41:11 · as lavish gifts did not suit her thrifty ways she did not like having servants clean
41:17 · the house and she always felt that she would do a better job cleaning it herself anyhow
41:23 · the evidence appears to show that ponzi had no intention of absconding with the money he had
41:29 · plenty of opportunity to do so but he did seem to believe in his ideas and right up to the very end
41:36 · he thought that he could turn things around around this time the attorney general's office began
41:42 · tapping ponzi's home and office telephones hoping to hear damaging admissions or clues as to what
41:49 · ponzi was up to but other than hearing him discuss his fanciful business ideas they heard nothing of
41:56 · use as wild as it might seem it is quite possible that ponzi had no idea of how deep he was in
42:04 · one of the things that differentiates charles from other con men and ponzi schemers
42:10 · that came after him is that he appears to have genuinely believed in himself and his
42:16 · business ideas even though he was doing nothing to bring any of these ideas to fruition
42:23 · ponzi seems to have been a combination of a fool and a dreamer he was not a stupid
42:28 · man it's worth saying but he did have an insane deluded confidence in himself and really seems
42:36 · to have believed that things would work out you will see this more and more as the story goes on
42:42 · charles seemed to have this confidence both in his early life and even late in life after
42:48 · everything had gone wrong for him he never gave up dreaming and he never lost faith in himself
42:55 · at this point in the story when huge sums of money were coming in and he owed even larger
43:01 · sums it appears that he had full faith in himself and believed that everything was going to work out
43:11 · it's worth noting at this point in the story that just because charles didn't necessarily plan on taking the money and running that in no way absolves him from what he did
43:21 · at the core of what was going on here was a big lie and the lie was that he was engaging
43:27 · in a profitable business in international reply coupons and there was also the lie
43:32 · to his investors that he could easily pay them back the money that he owed them in the 90s tv
43:38 · show Seinfeld George Costanza famously says to Jerry when asked how to beat a lie detector test
43:45 · jerry just remember it's not a lie if you believe it of course in the real world it is a lie and we
43:51 · all know that ponzi appeared to have all sorts of harebrained investment and business ideas and
43:58 · we'll get to some of those in a few minutes but it would appear that he never really lost a night's
44:03 · sleep worrying that everything would fall apart on him he doesn't seem to believe that at all
44:09 · even right up to the very end he appears to have believed in himself and believed in his scheme he
44:16 · seems to have thought that it would all work out which does make him a fascinating character but at
44:22 · the center of everything is still this great big lie and just because he didn't think of himself
44:27 · as a con man doesn't mean that he wasn't a con man up until now everything was going well for ponzi
44:35 · he lived a lavish lifestyle the kind of lifestyle he always felt he deserved he appeared to be
44:41 · dripping in well he was married to a woman who he was totally devoted to and she was devoted to him
44:48 · his mother had just arrived from italy and could see the success he had made of himself
44:59 · as the money flowed in ponzi dreamed up new ideas of how he would profitably invest it
45:06 · one of his more harebrained schemes was to buy up a fleet of old world war one ships he planned on
45:13 · kidding them out like a huge c-bound shopping mall and he would send them around the world
45:18 · filled with the finest american goods and they would dock at ports around the world
45:24 · selling all of these wonderful goods it would be the biggest import export business in the world he
45:30 · told his wife and mother he felt he could convert all of this debt into equity in this ponzi company
45:38 · and he would become a hugely wealthy businessman as harebrained a scheme as this sounds today
45:45 · it might have possibly sounded a bit less crazy in 1920 when great fortunes were being made in
45:52 · bootlegging and in stock manipulation by people like joe kennedy or al capone
45:58 · the one cloud that was hanging on the horizon at that point was a man named richard grossier
46:04 · richard grossier was the editor and publisher of the boston post one of the many boston
46:10 · newspapers of the day richard's father edward founded the paper and it was in 1920 the most
46:19 · important newspaper in boston which was one of the most important cities in the usa at the time
46:26 · richard was edward's nerdywell son whose life up until this point had been not unlike ponzi's
46:34 · in the way that ponzi had flunked out of the university of rome richard had lived similarly
46:40 · while at harvard the big difference was that richard had a deep pocketed and influential father
46:47 · who was able to fund all of richard's failures edward would write letters to the dean of harvard
46:54 · on boston post stationary requesting more and more chances for his son under normal circumstances
47:02 · richard would have been thrown out of harvard he barely attended class and failed to submit papers
47:08 · he only scraped through and graduated because of the pressure his father put on the college
47:14 · richard at this point was 10 years out of harvard and had in no way proved himself he had moved from
47:21 · job to job at the boston post in 1920 richard found himself leading the boston post because
47:29 · his father had suffered a stroke month earlier and richard was filling in for his hospitalized father
47:36 · this was richard's moment in the summer of 1920 he became convinced that the man with the midas touch
47:44 · charles ponzi was a fraud grozier decided to go after him and he decided that despite everyone
47:53 · around him believing in ponzi the story ponzi was spinning just could not be true
48:02 · the first story that appeared in the boston post came in july 1920. it took no shots at ponzi it
48:10 · just clearly explained what ponzi was claiming the journalist visited ponzi at his house in lexington
48:18 · and described it they described the scene on school street it was simply a descriptive story
48:25 · grossier felt that once the claims were spelled out clearly in black and white people would
48:31 · quickly realize how ridiculous they were ponzi loved the article when he saw it
48:37 · his favorite part was that right next to the article on the same page was an advert for a savings bank offering five percent interest on deposits
48:48 · the day that the story came out more people than ever turned up on school street with cash in hand
48:55 · they could earn five percent a year at the bank or double their money every three months with ponzi
49:01 · grozzier was enraged when he saw what happened he had thought that people would easily spot how
49:07 · implausible the story was instead he had just given ponzi a free front page advertisement
49:17 · day after day the post started publishing articles about ponzi explaining how his
49:22 · promises must be false the post brought in experts published cartoons mocking ponzi
49:29 · and slowly a few other papers joined in the other newspapers always let the post take the lead
49:36 · as they were afraid of being sued by a wealthy man like ponzi
49:42 · clarence barron the publisher of baron's financial and the wall street journal who
49:47 · was based out of boston piled on two he was the most listened to financial journalist of the time
49:54 · baron explained in his papers that ponzi's returns made no mathematical sense if ponzi could compound
50:02 · money at that rate in no time he would have all of the wealth in the world and somehow
50:08 · all of that wealth would have been stripped from the post office baron also pointed out
50:14 · that ponzi kept most of his money at banks and he questioned why ponzi would keep money at a bank
50:21 · if he was able to compound it at the rate that he claimed to be able to
50:27 · ponzi fired back with a lawsuit against the post telling anyone who would listen that he would
50:32 · soon own the printing presses of the boston post once he won his 5 million court case against them
50:40 · he sued barron too saying that he would shortly own baron's estate in cohasset massachusetts
50:50 · once the boston post started making noise some of the regulators got on board they didn't want to
50:57 · look asleep at the wheel as they had ignored ponzi up until now the bank commissioner the attorney
51:03 · general of massachusetts the u.s district attorney and the suffolk county d.a all came to examine the
51:11 · securities exchange company at once the newspaper articles and law enforcement agencies sniffing
51:17 · around were beginning to cause problems for charles the bad press caused a run on the
51:23 · securities exchange company during the run ponzi kept his cool he was happy to pay everyone back
51:31 · the lines were bigger than ever before at school street some people still investing but many more
51:37 · withdrawing ponzi had to rent additional office space in order to deal with the rush
51:43 · the streets were filled with pickpockets there were other people there offering to buy the
51:48 · ponzi notes at a discount from the people there to redeem not only that but as we explained earlier
51:55 · fraud attracts fraud people were turning up with counterfeit ponzi notes ponzi and his
52:01 · clerks knew that these notes were counterfeit but ponzi told his clerks to pay out on these notes
52:07 · too he didn't need to be seen arguing with customers or refusing to pay redemptions
52:14 · with all of this talk of limitless money being made in international reply coupons
52:20 · the postal inspector began to get nervous and decided to look into the issue it barely made the
52:26 · press that summer when a rule was passed at the post office prohibiting the post offices around
52:33 · the country from redeeming more than 50 cents in international reply coupons per customer per day
52:42 · at 27 school street ponzi felt that if he could sustain this run and survive he could still make
52:49 · his fortune this was just a small road bump one of the small benefits for him was that some of the
52:56 · notes being redeemed had only a few days left to go till the coupon would be paid and ponzi did not
53:03 · have to pay any interest on these notes if they were redeemed early all he had to do was to return
53:10 · the initial investment principle around this time some businessman from new york approached ponzi
53:18 · offering to pay him 10 million dollars for his business these talks fell apart quickly as the 10
53:25 · million dollar payment would only come after the buyer had learned his money making secret and had
53:31 · earned the 10 million dollars from operating the business this was not much of an out for charles
53:39 · as the lines grew ponzi would arrive every day to his school street office very conspicuous
53:46 · in his fine clothes and locomobile he would serve donuts and coffee to the crowd and he
53:52 · would make them feel at ease he hoped that the run would end shortly each day the charles survived
53:59 · the panic weakened and slowly people started putting money back in throughout all of this
54:05 · chaos ponzi continued meeting with reporters and telling his side of the story during this
54:11 · period ponzi hired a man named william mcmasters a former reporter and publicity man to help him
54:19 · improve the press he was getting one evening while charles sat chatting with a reporter at his home
54:25 · his upset wife rose walked through the room and when questioned by the reporter she replied
54:32 · i would much rather that charles was a bricklayer working eight hours each day and went undisturbed
54:38 · by anyone on the evenings and on sunday than to have all of the wealth that he has brought to me
54:47 · with the regulators circling and the press writing negative articles about him ponzi
54:53 · came up with a plan to save his business he set up a meeting to meet with all of the regulators and
54:59 · law enforcement agencies all at once accompanied by his lawyer while not all of them agreed to the
55:06 · meeting he turned up explained his postal reply coupon arbitrage and then negotiated them into
55:14 · an extraordinary agreement he would open his books to an auditor of their choosing who would assess
55:21 · all of his liabilities and only then would he have to prove his assets met those liabilities
55:28 · at that point charles said they would declare him solvent and all investigations would cease
55:36 · ponzi figured that this tactic would keep him in control of his business and buy him some time to
55:42 · make money on the way out of the meeting ponzi stopped and said it just occurred to me that the
55:49 · auditor's task might be impossible if i continue issuing notes while my liabilities are being
55:55 · summed up the task might never be completed the regulators agreed that this might be a problem
56:02 · and asked if charles could pause issuing notes while the investigation was underway
56:08 · i could replied ponzi acting as if the idea had only just occurred to him it might also give
56:14 · me time to spike certain insinuations that are being made by the press at that point he picked
56:21 · up the da's telephone called his office on school street and asked them to stop issuing new notes
56:31 · ponzi at this point was happy to no longer be taking deposits as each dollar that he took put
56:38 · him deeper and deeper into debt each early redemption on the other hand only involved
56:44 · returning principal without interest ponzi had at that time around 15 million dollars in liabilities
56:52 · and eight million dollars in assets some of which was tied up in various investments
56:58 · some even being frozen by the lawsuit against him from the furniture dealer
57:04 · he realized that some early withdrawals which were likely to come in the next few days
57:10 · would help him out but by his calculations he would need to show at least three million dollars
57:16 · in cash more than he had his ace in the hole he figured was the vault of the hannover trust the
57:23 · bank he had taken control of he would briefly access the vault take the cash and securities
57:30 · pass them off as his own to the auditor and then return them to the vault with no one the wiser
57:38 · things went crazy the next day at 27 school street once the press reported that ponzi was no longer
57:44 · taking deposits and being audited it was the busiest day ever with outbreaks of violence
57:50 · people forcing their way into the office and the windows and doors getting broken as ponzi returned
57:57 · from his meeting with the various investigators he had dropped into the hannover trust company
58:03 · the bank that he controlled and he had given them 30 days notice to withdraw the locked up
58:09 · money he had on deposit there unknown to ponzi the commissioner of banks a man named joseph
58:17 · allen whose investigation had so far turned up nothing illegal about ponzi's banking practices
58:23 · had grown concerned that there could be a run on the hannover trust and on other banks where
58:30 · ponzi did significant business he ordered the bank to provide him with daily reports of the bank's
58:37 · financial status including reserves deposits and whether any customers had overdrawn their accounts
58:45 · such scrutiny would make ponzi's temporary bank heist extremely difficult if not impossible
58:54 · on friday july 30th the boston post had the front page headline new york post master says
59:00 · not enough international reply coupons are in the whole world to make the fortune that ponzi claims
59:07 · grozier's constant hammering away was really beginning to have an effect
59:13 · mcmasters the publicity man that ponzi had hired had begun to grow suspicious of his boss
59:20 · he worried that if ponzi really was a fraud it would harm his career he did some poking
59:26 · around at the 27 school street office collected some evidence and then called the boston post
59:33 · he charged grozier six thousand dollars for his story the next day the front page
59:39 · of the post declared ponzi hopelessly insolvent mcmasters declared that as a public relations man
59:46 · his first duty was to the public saying nothing about the money he had been paid for his story
59:54 · the final nail in ponzi's coffin hammered in by the boston post was when richard grozier sent
1:00:01 · a reporter up to canada to follow up on a tip they had received the tip was that ponzi had
1:00:07 · spent time in prison in montreal for bank fraud when they published the story on august the 10th
1:00:15 · about him having done time for bank fraud along with his mug shot the panic intensified
1:00:21 · the reporter had walked around montreal and spoken to old colleagues of ponzis from zarossi bank
1:00:29 · he showed them photos of ponzi and they replied yes that's him bianchi he was
1:00:35 · positively identified by the prison warden too who described him as a model prisoner
1:00:44 · this story upset ponzi hugely as he had not told his wife rose about any of the time he had spent
1:00:51 · in prison rose however was not surprised as before the wedding date ponzi's mother had written rose
1:00:59 · a letter letting her know about his two prison sentences she knew that charles had not disclosed
1:01:06 · them to rose imelda had given rose charles's side of the story and rose viewed the story as more
1:01:13 · evidence of his good character that he had taken the fall for other people who needed his help
1:01:20 · once that story got out the game was about up for charles ponzi ponzi spun
1:01:26 · a tale to whoever would listen that he had taken the fall to save his boss
1:01:31 · who had a family and who had been tricked into the illegal act by an extortionist
1:01:40 · within days after his mug shot being published the auditor finished his work he calculated
1:01:47 · liabilities of roughly seven million dollars ponzi realized that he could only show assets
1:01:54 · of around four million dollars at most even when using trickery to overvalue certain assets
1:02:01 · when the time came for ponzi to seize assets from the vault of hanover trust
1:02:06 · the state banking inspector had already unwittingly foiled that plan
1:02:12 · ponzi arrived to find the bank had been seized by the regulator and the doors were barred rather
1:02:19 · than be arrested and humiliated in front of his wife and his mother ponzi decided to turn himself
1:02:26 · in while he disputed the findings of the auditor he said that he had agreed to abide by them he
1:02:34 · was charged initially with mail fraud a slightly confusing charge as he had only used the mail to
1:02:40 · notify investors to come in and collect the money he had owed them more charges would shortly follow
1:02:50 · rose who didn't claim to understand her husband's business dealings stood by him she told the press
1:02:57 · i love my husband more than ever my faith in my husband is as unshaken as it was before
1:03:04 · i'm rather pleased with what happened today for it gives me the chance to show the world and to give
1:03:10 · added evidence to my husband that i love him on friday the 13th of august 1920 charles ponzi was
1:03:19 · put in prison unable to post bail but that is by no means the end of the story charles ponzi was as
1:03:27 · you can see a man who could take a punch and stand right back up again charles ponzi was sentenced to
1:03:35 · five years in prison in plymouth county jail for federal crimes in the end ponzi had taken
1:03:42 · and spent around twenty five thousand dollars not including his home and car which were sold
1:03:48 · and returned to investors this comes to around four hundred thousand dollars in today's money the
1:03:55 · rest of the money was lost due to poor investments and payment of interest to early investors
1:04:04 · charles had expected that to be it but while in prison massachusetts state prosecutors continued
1:04:10 · to press charges against him in 1922 while still in federal prison he was back in the courthouse
1:04:19 · this time unable to afford a lawyer he defended himself charles impeccably dressed as always
1:04:27 · shocked the prosecutors by how capable he was at providing testimony and at questioning
1:04:33 · witnesses over the six weeks of his trial ponzi managed to convince the jury to find him and his
1:04:41 · co-defendants innocent of all charges against him after four years in prison he was let out
1:04:49 · early for good behavior the state of massachusetts had not yet given up though and after being free
1:04:56 · for three months charles found himself back in front of the court on five additional
1:05:01 · state charges once again ponzi acted as his own lawyer and the case ended with the jury deadlocked
1:05:09 · the state then tried a third time with new charges and this time ponzi's luck was out the prosecutors
1:05:17 · had learned from their prior mistakes and were better able to deal with his courtroom tricks
1:05:23 · ponzi was found guilty and sentenced to seven to nine years as a common and notorious thief
1:05:30 · he was allowed free on bail while his appeal was pending and he immediately began plotting his comeback determined to repay his creditors and regain his fortune
1:05:41 · in 1925 while out on bail charles ponzi headed to florida and assumed the name charles borrelli he
1:05:50 · opened a company called the charpon land syndicate charpon from charles ponzi he was offering
1:05:58 · investors returns of 200 in 60 days the highest returns he had offered to date ponzi bought 100
1:06:08 · acres of land some of which was waterlogged for 40 dollars an acre he divided each acre into 23
1:06:16 · tiny lots and tried to sell them for 10 each each acre he hoped would yield a profit of 500 charpon
1:06:26 · was quickly shut down and ponzi was sentenced to a year in jail for violating florida securities laws
1:06:37 · ponzi finally decided to flee the country to avoid his seven to nine year sentence he faked
1:06:44 · his suicide and boarded an italian ship under a false name to work as a dishwasher and waiter
1:06:51 · unable to keep quiet he foolishly revealed his true identity to a shipmate and the story of who
1:06:57 · he was travelled like wildfire on board the ship ponzi was then arrested in new orleans
1:07:04 · when the ship stopped in port before leaving for italy so how did things finally end for charles
1:07:13 · ponzi was released from prison in 1934 and was promptly deported to italy he had never gained
1:07:20 · u.s citizenship his wife rose stayed in boston and divorced him two years later in 1936 saying
1:07:29 · she still loved him but could not remain his wife knowing that they would never likely be reunited
1:07:36 · charles and rose however continued their love affair riding back and forth until they died
1:07:43 · neither of them married again or had children rose kept all of charles's letters which were found by her family after she died
1:07:52 · in them charles said that he could never marry again as he believed he was still married to rose
1:07:58 · although he did often try to make her jealous in order to encourage her to come back to him
1:08:04 · in 1939 ponzi moved to brazil and while he was always dreaming of money-making schemes
1:08:11 · he ended up running a small rooming house he tried to cash in on his story by writing his memoirs
1:08:18 · and tried to sell shares in the book to investors at twenty-five dollars a share but by then people
1:08:24 · were no longer interested in his story in 1948 blind sick and in hospital in brazil he allegedly
1:08:34 · came clean to a reporter who visited him he said that his business had been simple the old business
1:08:41 · of robbing peter to pay paul charles ponzi died in january 1949 at the age of 66. at the time of his
1:08:51 · passing the new york times said that it was almost possible though not quite to believe that he was
1:08:58 · as credulous as his victims and deceived himself as much as them after the scheme collapsed in 1920
1:09:07 · all of the banks where charles had done business fell under scrutiny from the banking inspector
1:09:13 · along with the hannover trust three other boston banks failed that september
1:09:19 · partially due to bank runs caused by the unwinding of the securities exchange company it was not just
1:09:26 · runs on the banks though some of the bankers in the aftermath were accused of having been
1:09:32 · so reckless with depositors money that their behavior would have embarrassed even ponzi
1:09:38 · what about ponzi's trade in international reply coupons in the end it turned out that
1:09:44 · he had only ever bought three dollars worth of international reply coupons from europe
1:09:51 · he had bought one dollars worth in spain one dollars worth in italy and one dollars worth
1:09:56 · in france he had done this in the early days of his business as a proof of concept
1:10:03 · the french and spanish deals were awash and the italian deal was a money maker when everything
1:10:10 · was wrapped up investors who had stayed in ponzi's scheme until the end eventually got back 37 and a
1:10:17 · half percent of the money they had invested many people had borrowed money to invest and ended up
1:10:23 · losing everything others had managed to get in and out and walked away with huge gains some of those
1:10:31 · felt that the money they had made was distasteful and returned it to the liquidator of the scheme
1:10:38 · daniels the furniture dealer who had shaken ponzi down for fifty thousand dollars
1:10:43 · came under scrutiny for his claim that he owned half of the business he ended up having to return his ill-gotten gains in the end ponzi's name would go down in history
1:10:55 · but not in the way he wanted it to the old scheme of robbing peter to pay paul would be renamed the
1:11:02 · ponzi scheme others would go on to do it on an even bigger scale than ponzi had most famously
1:11:09 · bernie madoff the reason that this story is so interesting is that there are tons of lessons that
1:11:16 · can be taken away from it the most obvious one is that if an investment idea seems too good to be
1:11:22 · true it probably is but unfortunately investors do seem to still make that mistake to this day
1:11:29 · but if there is one big lesson here it is that a good way of avoiding big losses is staying away
1:11:36 · from any sort of get-rich-quick scheme there are other lessons here too though while ponzi's life
1:11:43 · worked out to be a total unmitigated disaster where everything went wrong for him over and
1:11:49 · over again usually driven by his deep character flaws you still do have to admire certain things
1:11:56 · about him like his spirit ponzi never really gave up not after failing at university gambling
1:12:02 · losses multiple prison sentences he just stood up and tried again and if there's nothing else
1:12:08 · you have to admire that about him his perseverance ponzi may have been delusional about his abilities
1:12:15 · and a fool in terms of finance but many of his characteristics can be found in some of the most
1:12:21 · successful people in the world today he was always looking for opportunities which is a good thing
1:12:28 · he was always thinking big instead of grumbling to people who would listen to him about his current place in society instead he just went out and tried to change his world

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