Newengland wrote: "I still think a lot of journalists "make up their stories." It sells newspapers. Witness the hysteria over "swine flu." "

Absolutely. The non-existent swine flu panic may have even been the lead-in to the piece.

The Samuel Johnson story may have been the best, though. He was apparently assigned to cover Parliament for Gentleman's Quarterly in the 1720s. Amazingly enough, although he attended precisely one session in all those years, every issue carried Johnson's "verbatim" transcripts of the monologues and debates. Evidently the politicians never let the truth be known because Johnson was more eloquent than they ever could have been!

I still think a lot of journalists "make up their stories." It sells newspapers. Witness the hysteria over "swine flu." Kind of like The Weather Channel out there with their mics and 7 snow flakes talking about the ongoing blizzard. Hysteria = viewers. In the case of the flu tempest, it also sells drugs and vaccines, giving certain immoral companies reason to release "mutated" strains, thus creating hysteria, thus creating huge profits. Oh. It also gives terrorists ideas (as if they don't lack them as it is).

But no, they wouldn't do THAT for incredible profits, would they?

Mencken's 'bathtub hoax' is way up there.

I just heard an interview on On The Media with the author of All the News Unfit to Print How Things Were... and How They Were Reported. It's a book about journalists, including Samuel Johnson and Mark Twain as well as more recent figures, who simply made up their stories and changed the historical record forever.

Newengland wrote: "Speaking of con jobs, he gave an interview this week where he said the Red Sox hurt their chances to land him when they didn't keep negotiations out of the press. Then, in the next breath, he said..."

Seems you had a point about Teixiera.....

Speaking of con jobs, he gave an interview this week where he said the Red Sox hurt their chances to land him when they didn't keep negotiations out of the press. Then, in the next breath, he said he always intended to go to the Yankees -- his choice from the start.

Um... another dim bulb on the diamond, I guess. But no one's paying him to think, and apparently his wife picked the Yankees as much as he did. That's why the Boston press has taken to calling him "Mr. Leigh Texeira."

Newengland wrote: "Yankee fan? I forgive you that (as I must). Add Mark-My-Words Texeira to the list of punch lines, will ya? The less he talks, the better (for him, I mean)."

Actually, I'm glad we got Teixiera -- though I do like the nickname! We haven't had a real first baseman (IMHO) since Tino Martinez.

Yankee fan? I forgive you that (as I must). Add Mark-My-Words Texeira to the list of punch lines, will ya? The less he talks, the better (for him, I mean).

Newengland wrote: "Bwa-ha-ha-ha! Good one, Laura. I love Red Sox humor!"

Thanks! But the sad part is I'm a Yankee fan!!! I just can't stand A-Rod. Paul O'Neill was my idol.

Bwa-ha-ha-ha! Good one, Laura. I love Red Sox humor!

Jonathan wrote: "I just heard that Topps is going to be inserting cards celebrating "hoaxes, hoodwinks and bamboozles" into their baseball card packages this summer."

Will Alex Rodriguez appear as a player or a hoax?

I just heard that Topps is going to be inserting cards celebrating "hoaxes, hoodwinks and bamboozles" into their baseball card packages this summer. The link is to a CNN Money article on the subject.

I read a review of that book, Johnathan, and thought it sounded very interesting.

I must watch for it....problem is that sometimes books for our market and the American one sport different titles!

A recent article by Gail Collins mentioned a memoir written by a man trying to come to grips with the distressing reality that nearly everything about his father's life had been a con. The book sounded fascinating: Duke of Deception.

Thanks everyone!

Very nice, Jonathan. I'm happy you're getting your name and typeface out there.

Nice piece! "Scrim of respectability".....like it!

Please forgive double posting (I also posted this to the Constant Reader list) but I thought it might be relevant here, too. A short piece I wrote on Madoff is in today's U.S. News and World Report:
http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/2...

There was an article in New York Magazine called Mom and Dad and Ruth and Bernie that tells the story of Madoff's "long-form" con from a highly personal perspective. I thought it was fascinating because it offered some insight into the question everyone is asking: what, exactly, were people thinking?

Didn't Weimar Germany print a lot of money, too? (Sorry. Stirring the pot. Better than smoking it.)

Bank Of England just prints more money, I'm sure that'll solve the problem...I'm off to print some of my own right now...it'll probably end up with the same value. Hmmm, the £ reaching parity with the € was scary enough, but what about when it reaches the same with that of Zimbabwe?

Admittedly, those were excellent interest rates.

Or find where Bernie Madoff stashed it.

Oh Ruth, everyone knows we'll get that 46 percent back if we'll only give the banks between five and thirty trillion dollars!

Barbarossa wrote: "if it sounds or looks too good to be true...assume it is too good to be true.

Like 46 percent interest on your investments.

How to Cheat at Everything A Con Man Reveals the Secrets of the Esoteric Trade of Cheating, Scams and Hustles
Gambling Scams How They Work, How to Detect Them, How to Protect Yourself
Snake Oil Life's Calculations, Misdirections, And Manipulations
Folks, these are a few wee tomes to arm you and stop you becoming a mark. They are mainly about the "short cons" though. In a nutshell though, if it sounds or looks too good to be true...assume it is too good to be true.

The same cons work year after year. Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds details "bubbles" and manias of the past, including the Dutch tulip mania and the "South Sea Bubble." Nothing new under the sun in finance, either.

The book is a key to understanding financial folly of myriad kinds in myriad settings.

Yes, it's a pyramid scheme.

I have never understood how anyone can fall for the money in an envelope (or wrapped in a towel) con. Yet it happens all the time. David's "affinity fraud" is the one I would expect to be most successful.

Sounds like Madoff's was both a Ponzi scheme and an affinity con, according to David's classifications, since Madoff preyed on the Jewish community (including Elie Wiesel!).

Good question about the Ponzi / pyramid nomenclature. Now that you mention it, I guess they are the same.

I recently saw a book about Mr. Ponzi that looks interesting: Ponzi's Scheme The True Story of a Financial Legend.

The Ponzi scheme is sometimes called a pyramid scheme, yes?

And what do they call the scheme where the mark puts money in an envelope which is signed and sealed in front of him/her and held until it "grows" -- unfortunately the money never makes it into the envelope so the mark finds that s/he is holding plain paper.

There are standard cons:

The "Murphy Game," whereby a John is induced to pay in advance for the services of a courtesan. The intermediary absconds with the money.

The "Spanish Prisoner" involves a wealthy man being held prisoner. The mark is offered the opportunity to advance the ransom money in exchange for a handsome reward and, sometimes, the "victim's" daughter's hand.

The "advance fee fraud," of which the Nigerian "419" con is a variant, involves a tale of a valuable that can be released if a fee or a bribe is paid in advance--the advance fee is paid, but the valuable item never materializes.

A "Ponzi scheme," of course, is a phoney investment whose first investors are paid off with the funds invested by their successors. Eventually there are no more "greater fools," and the scheme collapses. Yes, Virginia, there really was a Ponzi.

"Affinity fraud" is any con whose marks are members of the same ethnic, religious, or other group as the grifter, and the connection is played upon to build up confidence in the marks.

Many successful cons involve the mark in illegal or disreputable activity, deterring them from complaining to the authorities when they learn the sad truth.

Tom Sawyer and the fence is a perfect example, Ruth!

Reminds me of Tom Sawyer and painting the fence.

Weeellllll......maybe not. Wrong sort of con!

Hmmmm?
So should I tell my family that they probably wouldn't want to wash the dirty dishes anyway???

Nice to see you Tyler and have some intelligent conversation bouncing around here again! NE, you are dead right about conmen and teaching....I reckon 75% of the job is bluff.....calling kids' bluff and bluffing through!

Reverse psychology strikes again again strikes!

The "slow con" sounds more like the real thing. I've read somewhere about the psychology of it, in particular the dissuading appeal ("Of course, you might not want to do this if ..."). Apparently, dissuasion of this nature causes people to subconsciously defend the idea, and they start thinking about reasons why, yes, they might really want to "do this" after all.

And I keep trying to sell the kids on the power of WORDS. Maybe I need to be a better con man (con men make the best teachers, no?)...

Well, I haven't read the book, but from what I could tell in the brief segment I heard on the radio they were talking about two different kinds of cons, with two different kinds of language. One, the fast con, is the fast-talking patter of the snake oil salesman that Ruth mentions above. It's a hustle, meant to take whatever money the mark has in his pocket at the time. To me that sounded more like standard marketing. The second, the slow con, is the Madoff version. It takes place over a long period of time, and can involve the con man seemingly dissuading the mark from giving him any money. I gather that Madoff did just that -- he appeared aloof, as though he wouldn't condescend to manage just ANYONE's money. I'm intrigued by this whole thing now.

That point is hard to dispute. So I wonder how the language typical of a fraud would differ from what we hold to be ordinary advertising.

I thought ordinary marketing was a subtle con.

The language would have to distinguish a con from ordinary marketing.

Like the patter of a snake-oil salesman, Jonathan?

To "all men are created equal."

NPR's "On the Media" this morning had a segment on con games, swindles, etc, and they mentioned the book that the movie The Sting is based on: The Big Con The Story of the Confidence Man. Apparently it's written by a linguist interested in the role of language in perpetrating confidence games. I thought this was a really interesting take on the subject, since every swindle has a compelling story at its center, from the Nigerian e-mail scam to Bernie Madoff.