Dennis Prager Show - Happy New Year!
Aired: 2023-03-14
Duration: 04:21


=== Charles Ponzi's Legacy (04:21) ===

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[00:00:39]  *music* You are listening to the best of The Dennis Prager Show.
[00:00:47]  All righty, everybody.
[00:00:48]  You're listening to The Dennis Prager Show.
[00:00:50]  I thank you for doing so.
[00:00:52]  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.
[00:01:09]  I suspect...
[00:01:10]  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.
[00:01:22]  Where people pay in money, some get more money, but eventually a lot of people lose all their money.
[00:01:31]  Well, it's actually named after somebody.
[00:01:34]  There was a guy, Ponzi.
[00:01:37]  And Charles Ponzi is the guy who developed this, and Mitchell Zukoff of Boston University has written The True Story of a Financial Legend.
[00:01:47]  Ponzi, this is Dennis Prager, and welcome to the program.
[00:01:51]  Dennis, thank you.
[00:01:52]  Hi, thank you.
[00:01:54]  As soon as I saw this book was written, I knew that I had to have you on.
[00:01:59]  I don't know if there is anybody who has a financial anything named after him.
[00:02:05]  That is as famous or infamous as Ponzi.
[00:02:08]  Even Capone didn't get a submachine gun named after him.
[00:02:13]  That's right.
[00:02:14]  Yes.
[00:02:15]  I mean, when you think, I cannot think of a parallel.
[00:02:19]  This Ponzi fascinates, I guess, I don't think he fascinates people.
[00:02:25]  They don't even think of him.
[00:02:27]  In fact, I didn't know it was named after a guy.
[00:02:30]  So I assume that I'm in the majority in that way.
[00:02:34]  We all heard of the scheme, but we don't know the guy.
[00:02:37]  It's funny.
[00:02:38]  I think you were right.
[00:02:39]  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.
[00:02:49]  Oh, right.
[00:02:50]  And you're one of them.
[00:02:52]  Why did you write this book?
[00:02:54]  For that very reason.
[00:02:55]  You know, I was a journalist for a long time at the Boston Globe.
[00:02:59]  And to tell stories that people didn't know has always been a passion of mine.
[00:03:03]  And the fact that there was this Charles Ponzi.
[00:03:05]  I was a banking reporter in Boston when banks were failing left and right.
[00:03:09]  And someone said to me, out of the blue, you know, banks haven't failed like this since the days of Ponzi.
[00:03:14]  And when I heard Ponzi, like in the scheme, I said, yeah, he was a Boston guy.
[00:03:19]  And it set me down the path.
[00:03:21]  You know, what you just said, you like stories, what did you say, of the unknown, or what was the word you used?
[00:03:27]  Stories that haven't been told.
[00:03:28]  That's it.
[00:03:29]  Do you know, I have found, doing this program, those are my favorite interviews, the stories that have not been told.
[00:03:36]  I had an author on about the one gold coin that's a double eagle.
[00:03:43]  The double eagle book, yes.
[00:03:45]  Yes, I tell you.
[00:03:46]  I sat at the microphone riveted for an hour.
[00:03:50]  I could not believe how much you learn about history, not just about that unknown item.
[00:03:59]  Yes.
[00:04:00]  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.
[00:04:12]  A history of America in the 1920s may be wonderful.
[00:04:16]  But if you take one person in the 1920s, you may learn more.
[00:04:20]  I couldn't agree more.