Imagine my delight when I cracked open my paper this morning and saw this headline.
Radio host gets charged in Ponzi scheme
Conservative radio show host Pat Kiley claims he was just reading from a script when he told his worldwide radio audience in weekly broadcasts that he was a senior financial adviser and they could avoid financial Armageddon by entrusting him and his business partners with their money.
Don't give your money to the evil Gubmint. Give it to us!!
But federal authorities say he did much more than that. In an indictment unsealed Wednesday, Kiley was portrayed as an integral figure in the $194 million Trevor Cook Ponzi scheme that defrauded more than 700 investors.
Kiley's program, "Follow the Money," was carried on more than 200 stations nationwide, including KSTP Radio (1500 AM), and on the Worldwide Christian Radio network. He called his listeners "truth seekers" and drew them in, rich and poor alike, with promises of financial security, just as the bottom began to drop away from the stock market.
Oh no. Say it ain't so. Of course, this is even the best part of this story.
In court, Kiley told U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Keyes that he had "probably $9 to $10" in the bank, $11 in cash and an as-yet uncashed Social Security check, "which I live off of."
I thought it was Social Security that was the Ponzi Scheme. Now he says that he's living off of it? Pardon me for just a moment...
BWAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHA!!!!!
Maybe the "Gubmint" does know how to handle money better than the private sector. They always come crawling back to it, don't they?
12 comments:
Oh, Mark, don't you understand? These guys are being framed by the big bad government for something they didn't do.
Or is it, "They were just trying to make money, so it's okay." Or is it, "They made honest mistakes?" Like forgetting that they weren't actually rated as a top money manager by Morningstar?
Don't you know that people who believe con men deserve what they get? You need to have the freedom to be screwed over by crooks and it's your tough luck if you believe their bull. That's the free market at work!
Caveat emptor!
Are you claiming that evil conservatives want anarchy? Repeal of every single law?
Should the government have passed laws that restrict Ponzi scheme entry to just the 'fatcats'?
In other news, what's all this talk about the debt limit?
I'm sorry, but when did any advocate for free markets here say that fraud was okey-dokey instead of illegal? I must've missed that.
Fraud is fraud, no matter who perpetrates it. When a private actor commits fraud, the govt prosecutes him (as it should). The trouble is when the govt commits fraud, how is it held acccountable? M keeps saying that Geithner and pals defrauded the American public - yet not only is no one on trial for this, Timmy got promoted by the very folks that should have prosecuted him.
If y'all have enough functioning neurons to support cognitive dissonance you might have to reflect on that a bit.
If found guilty, he should go to jail. I don't care what the politics are of the people involved (you arrive there when you view people as individuals, not members of a group). CNBC has a show American Greed with a different example of stuff like this every week. It draws in all kinds of people, not just "truth-seekers", but if you use only them as an example, you are just pushing your narrative.
I've never heard of this guy anyway.
SS could be structured like a ponzi scheme and still have people living off of it as those 2 facts can live side by side being mutually exclusive.
"Don't give your money to the evil gubmint..." - as if we have a choice.
Who?
I don't want to make you feel bad, but trolling for no-name criminal "Christians", looking for that 'gotcha' moment, seems like a pretty small life. Have no fear, I know you're bored but school will be back in session soon.
Trolling? I wouldn't call the front page trolling. Nor would 200 stations be trolling. I think you missed the moral of the story which was his social security check is what he is relying on.
Then he sounds like the people you claim to represent sasquatch. You don't sound too supportive and compassionate if they happen to venture off your intellectual plantation.
...and if you all truly believe that the gubmint handles money better than the private sector, one would think this blog should be littered with stories of government efficiency.
The administration you all voted for ships automatic weapons to mexico and none of you have a comment about it. Keep up that hard hitting accountability work...ignoring anything that doesn't fit the preferred narrative.
In addition, anyone who gives a large sum of money to some LLC promising them amazing returns along with protection from downturns in the stock market is more than likely an idiot.
"They" always come crawling back...yep, that's Marks definition of the private sector. It includes companies that got a bailout, big banks, and insurance companies. There isn't much in the private sector outside of those 3.
Here is a great explanation about govt incentives and how bubbles grow from that.
Let's see him try to get anything from Social Security in 25 years. What Mark seems to be completely unable or unwilling to grasp is that the early investors in pyramid-type schemes are making money right up until it collapses. It's the ones who get in late that get screwed. The problem with any such scheme is that you need increasing numbers of more-or-less voluntary suckers to make payments to the early ones. What makes government-run schemes (that may be set up as well-intentioned efforts, but have huge chunks of cold political calculus of how many votes and how much party loyalty they will generate in coming years) different is in the use of force. If you don't think force is used with regard to Social Security, try not paying FICA taxes. There are a few that are under different systems, but for most Americans, if you want to work for money or are self-employed, you have to pay. And you have to pay whatever the government says you have to pay. If Bernie Madoff had had access to 100,000,000 "investors" that had to pay into his scheme, and had to take whatever he chose to dole back out (and got to keep the balance if they died instead of paying out to their beneficiaries), and also unable to "cash out" ever, well, Madoff's scheme could've run for decades, maybe generations before it finally collapsed.
Caveat emptor!
That's it in a nutshell. Instead of "Let the buyer beware", a concept that has worked reasonably well since the Romans, Democrats think it should be "let the seller beware."
...unless the "seller" is a Democrat controlled government or a big Democrat Party donor, in which case they can get a waiver.
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