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Charles Ponzi's Legacy
00:04:21
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| *music* You are listening to the best of The Dennis Prager Show. | |
| All righty, everybody. | |
| You're listening to The Dennis Prager Show. | |
| I thank you for doing so. | |
| And while there is a lot in the news that I want to talk to you about, I want to talk first to Mitchell Zukoff, who is a professor at Boston University, a professor of journalism, who has written a book about something that has always fascinated me, and I suspect I'm not alone. | |
| I suspect... | |
| That 98.423% of you listening has heard of the idea of, or the nonsense of, or whatever you wish to call, or the evil of, a Ponzi scheme. | |
| Where people pay in money, some get more money, but eventually a lot of people lose all their money. | |
| Well, it's actually named after somebody. | |
| There was a guy, Ponzi. | |
| And Charles Ponzi is the guy who developed this, and Mitchell Zukoff of Boston University has written The True Story of a Financial Legend. | |
| Ponzi, this is Dennis Prager, and welcome to the program. | |
| Dennis, thank you. | |
| Hi, thank you. | |
| As soon as I saw this book was written, I knew that I had to have you on. | |
| I don't know if there is anybody who has a financial anything named after him. | |
| That is as famous or infamous as Ponzi. | |
| Even Capone didn't get a submachine gun named after him. | |
| That's right. | |
| Yes. | |
| I mean, when you think, I cannot think of a parallel. | |
| This Ponzi fascinates, I guess, I don't think he fascinates people. | |
| They don't even think of him. | |
| In fact, I didn't know it was named after a guy. | |
| So I assume that I'm in the majority in that way. | |
| We all heard of the scheme, but we don't know the guy. | |
| It's funny. | |
| I think you were right. | |
| When you said 98.423% had heard of Ponzi schemes, I think the other half of that equation is that 1.577 actually knew about Charles Ponzi. | |
| Oh, right. | |
| And you're one of them. | |
| Why did you write this book? | |
| For that very reason. | |
| You know, I was a journalist for a long time at the Boston Globe. | |
| And to tell stories that people didn't know has always been a passion of mine. | |
| And the fact that there was this Charles Ponzi. | |
| I was a banking reporter in Boston when banks were failing left and right. | |
| And someone said to me, out of the blue, you know, banks haven't failed like this since the days of Ponzi. | |
| And when I heard Ponzi, like in the scheme, I said, yeah, he was a Boston guy. | |
| And it set me down the path. | |
| You know, what you just said, you like stories, what did you say, of the unknown, or what was the word you used? | |
| Stories that haven't been told. | |
| That's it. | |
| Do you know, I have found, doing this program, those are my favorite interviews, the stories that have not been told. | |
| I had an author on about the one gold coin that's a double eagle. | |
| The double eagle book, yes. | |
| Yes, I tell you. | |
| I sat at the microphone riveted for an hour. | |
| I could not believe how much you learn about history, not just about that unknown item. | |
| Yes. | |
| And so I believe, and believe me, I'm going to let you talk, but I just have to tell you and my listeners, I think the best way to learn history is through the micro. | |
| A history of America in the 1920s may be wonderful. | |
| But if you take one person in the 1920s, you may learn more. | |
| I couldn't agree more. | |