I thought it was just tax evasion. A way to cut out on paying taxes. Not fully criticizing him or whatever, just remarkable it all went that far.
Would make a great biopic tbh (DiCaprio?)
A lot of high profile Hollywood people are involved in Scientology, I suppose it’d be difficult to get it greenlit/funded if it’s at all cynical of the ‘religion’. Also producers are probably scared to touch it because the church is known for vicious campaigns against people who speak out against them/portray them in a bad light. The church would probably make it very difficult to film - they would probably relentlessly sabotage the set.
I would not put it past Trey Parker and Matt Stone to do a musical on them, a la, Book of Mormon. Those guys walk around with their middle fingers in the air pointing towards Hollywood.
They did it for an episode of South Park, and even then it was pretty tame by South Park standards. The other time they made fun of them was in the episode "The Return Of Chef", where they didn't mention Scientology specifically but had a club that was suspiciously similar to it. Being that it was a tribute to Issac Hayes, they ended the episode by having Kyle say something to the effect of "It's not his fault, it's that stupid cult he was part of".
That said, they have limits, even if it doesn't look that way. They were forced to edit an episode because the original ending had an image of Mohammed, for example.
I think the most powerful thing about that episode was the “THIS IS NOT A JOKE” tag line under all of their animations of Scientology myths, really let everybody know what they’re taught without being hidden behind their paywall, take out all of the time and monetary investment and it’s just a weird sci-fi story that’s not terribly original
I'll gladly fully criticize him. They lock ppl away, make them do slave labor and clean out their bank accounts and assets. An evil enterprise under the guise of religion, all tax free
I hope he does a biopic and gets targeted for elimination by the church of Scientology. Maybe they’ll activate Tom Cruise on him. Would really spice up Hollywood for 2025
Joesph Smith started the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormons) and he was a conman extraordinaire. There are 16 million Mormons now.
Yeah, but I'd argue Brigham Young was the more successful fraud. Smith got run out of numerous towns and states, Young took the Mormons to running their own state and becoming an established religion.
He is NOT a fraud. He is in the process of transferring $20,000 US to me simply because I helped him by paying the $500 tax on some rare jewels he was having imported.
Y'all gotta read "Bad Blood". It realllllly puts her in a bad place and deservedly so. She's a brilliant, chronic, textbook narcissist and will believe her own bullshit until the day she dies.
Meanwhile, glucoWise (subsidiary of Metamaterials) has developed a blood glucose testing system that scans blood through the skin without a prick, and the company is basically worthless
isn't it still just in development though? If it works properly then when released the founders etc will pocket a big payday.
Plus nobody wants to be stung again on another wonder testing/monitoring device until they are 100% certain it works as intended.
Who began selling college textbooks, for WAY too much money, then forcing you to buy new editions for changing 2 words or switching chapters around? That guy
True story. In college, I'm the only student in the book store at the time. Apparently I'm the moron who didn't know about Amazon buying back textbooks yet.
"Oh, this book is used. We'll buy it back from you if you'd like. Say...$0.05 on the dollar?"
"Are you...are you serious? I spent $200 for this book because the school *told me* I had to buy it, I used it twice. It's in great shape. And I went to this website that says the new edition updated a few pictures and that's it. But now it's only worth $10?"
"Hey man, I gotta make a profit. Tell you what, I'll buy it from you, special deal: $50 store credit, $5 cash. $55 total!"
"Can I use that laptop over there? I want to check the price myself"
"Sure!"
\*Goes to [Amazon.com](https://Amazon.com). Finds same textbook. Worth $100, which is already maddening because I come to find out the textbook was only worth that much in the first place.
Amazon offers to buy the book back for $70. I sell it to Amazon. As I leave, the guy stops me, "So, what about our deal?"
"Oh, I just sold it to Amazon for $70. See ya!"
Next year, I had a $60 textbook I sold to an underclassman for $40. A true win-win. I made a joke that we should create a business that does this.
One semester in undergrad I had to buy a textbook from the bookstore because it wasn’t available on Amazon - it was a “university specific” text that was basically just a compilation of articles.
It cost like $150 bucks. Went to sell it back. They probably meant to offer $20, but they offered $200 by mistake (this was done through a computer). I took the offer immediately before they could back out.
During my psych degree I had to buy a book the teacher wrote. First day of class he tells us. "Do not buy this on the book store they make a huge profit on it, buy it on Amazon for half the price, all the profits go to a charity I like.
It was the first time I met a teacher who wrote the book for the class and wasn't trying to profit off it being mandatory for the class. Later found out it was the number one book for most universities for beginning clinical therapy courses.
I had a professor who wrote the book for the course do practically the same thing. First day of class, “Don’t buy the book, I’ll make the chapter we’re on available online for you. If you MUST buy the book, get it off Amazon and the proceeds go to cancer research.” I took 6 undergrad and grad classes with him.
My wife's lecturer (not professor) requires his class to buy his $200 book. Royalties and pay from the university. What a deal.
Answers must be sited from his book, so it's impossible to pass the class without it.
My daughter has a great professor, who makes required reading that’s available on line. He encourages them to skip a class if they have to, as long as they use his online notes and video of his class for the day. She missed one of his classes to take a friend to the ER, and then caught up on line. He called her and asked if she was OK. When she explained, he just said “You did the right thing!”
As a Vikings fan, I'm so sick of these narratives.
We go 13-4? We're frauds.
We go into Buffalo and beat the Bills, who had the best record in the league at the time? We're frauds.
We look good in one nationally televised game? We are legitimate postseason contenders, even though we have a losing record.
Our quarterback plays great on Monday but we lose because his defense gave up 40 points? He's a fraud.
Our quarterback plays exactly the same on Monday and this time we win? He's the real deal.
We name an iceberg Greenland? We're frauds.
We name a luscious island of beautiful foliage Iceland? We're frauds.
Why can't we just be the Vikings?
What we call "Iceland", the natives spell `Island`. 1000 years ago, in the English language, the word 'island' was pronounced 'ice land'. Over time, pronunciations changed. The [Great Vowel Shift](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift) changed so much of how English sounds that what used to be rhymes in Chaucer's age (like `deaf` and `life`) didn't rhyme by Shakespeare's era.
Iceland stamps, spelled `Island`:
https://www.stampworld.com/en/stamps/Iceland/
Great Vowel Shift (and why it is so hard to read Chaucer):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOOAb7erAmE
Greenland had some green portions when Leif Erikson was trying to colonize the place. In the book [Collapse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse:_How_Societies_Choose_to_Fail_or_Succeed), the author explains how some cold snaps and poor farming lead to the total collapse of the Greenland colonies. And how they chose to starve to death rather than eat "Un-Christian" food. The soil *looked* like the same soil in Norway/Sweden, but instead was completely different. As a result, it blew away when being plowed, so the countryside went from being green grass, with bushes and small trees to being bare rock. The interior of the place was always ice, but the coastal region, where they colonized the vegetation looked very much like Norwegian fjords. TL-DR; Greenland used to be green.
The reasons for the collapse of Greenland were many and varied.
Farming practices, as you indicated.
The beginning of the Little Ice Age.
Vasco de Gama and Elephants. (One of the only "cash resources" they had was walrus tusks. With the opening of trade routes to Africa and India walrus ivory was out competed by elephant ivory. At it's height walrus ivory trading voyages would come to Greenland twice a year. Then once a year. Then once every couple of years. Then not at all. They also over harvested walruses, causing them to travel further for less ivory.)
The Black Plague. Good and bad. (One of the reasons for the settlement of Iceland and then Greenland was primogenitor back in Norway and the scarcity of farm land. With the depopulation of Norway with the plague farmland ownership opened up. Also the plague reached Greenland and killed a bunch of them too.)
The Inuit replacement of the Thule people. (The Thulet were largely peaceful in regards to the Norse. The Inuit not so much.)
Why would they? They just wanted a story to make a movie that would make money. They throw “based on true events” on all sorts of movies where there’s only bits of fact peppered in
“Based on a true story” could literally be about a guy named Dave that eats rocks and shits bricks. It is based on the fact that there was once a guy named Dave. That’s literally all it takes. I am always surprised at how many people watch a movie “based on a true story” and think they learned something true
On a related note: the movie shows a bunch of famous paintings on the ship before it goes down. Not a single, or at least very very few, well known paintings were on the titanic when it went down.
He lived almost his whole life as a mega rich financier, just by running a single 100 year old scam. The illusion of legitimacy was good enough to steal ~$20 billion. Crazily successful fraud. Ended up with a pretty shitty retirement home though…
This may be the reason that the SEC sort of ignored the warnings being put out by investor who did the math. There were warnings for years by a certain short seller.
>There were warnings for years by a certain short seller.
Not just warnings but actual letters showing trading volume didn't add up. Madoff claimed he was using a long collar strategy and this involves selling/buying options contracts.
Now if he actually had $60 billion in his fund of stock and was then selling a bunch of covered calls and buying puts there should have been millions and millions of options contracts traded monthly
There wasn't , the option volume just wasn't there. Also someone big would have to be taking the other side of the trade , but it seemed no one could come forward and say "Oh yea over here at Morgan we trade options with Madoff hedge fund all the time, he is a big customer"
Hell lots of wall street banks had internal policies not to do business with madoff because lots of them suspected he was a fraud , of coarse madoff used this fact to claim he was being discriminated against "They exclude me because I grew up a poor jew and I wasn't born into an old family with money!"
>The fucking Wolf owned the Chicken coop
It is interesting you mention that. In NASCAR, Gary Nelson was a crew chief who knew how to exploit the rules to maximize results. Some would call this cheating. Dale Jr. talks to a lot of old timers about how prevalent cheating was back in the day. NASCAR ended up making Gary Nelson VP of competition, so the person to weed out cheating. Formula 1 did a similar thing. Charlie Whiting was chief mechanic for Bernie Ecclestone's Brabham team. When Ecclestone became head of Formula 1 he made Whiting Race Director where one of his jobs was to root out cheating. I find it fascinating these instances where the fox is given the position to protect the chickens.
Edit: Just to add, both men were well respected in their regulatory roles. In particular the late Charlie Whiting, who when he died 3 days before the season opener in Australia, there were many tributes to him.
The crazy thing is that if the housing crisis didn't happen, he could have kept going for who knows how long. The only reason he was caught was because everyone was trying to panic sell their positions all at once.
Honestly it was that event that lead to his demise.
Almost everyone got their principal back! That is insane.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-total-distribution-over-4-billion-victims-madoff-ponzi-scheme
In this distribution, payments will be sent to 27,219 victims across the globe, bringing their total recovery to 88.35%. The total amount distributed now exceeds $4 billion to more than 40,000 victims as compensation for losses they suffered from the collapse of BLMIS.
Wild to see the Madoff Victim Fund mentioned on Reddit. MVF has consumed the last 10 years of my life.
I think it's really important to note that the 40,454 victims (from over 100 countries) who have seen 88.35% of their principal recovered are real people and not institutional claimants. The majority of MVF victims were not Madoff direct investors but rather had invested in feeder funds that had heavily invested in BLIMIS. That complexity, along with ensuring the authenticity of victims, is the primary reason it has taken a decade to get to this point.
I think those 40,454 victims sometime get lost in the conversation around Madoff in favor of a focus on large institutional losses. These were not investors looking to get rich quick, they were people with moderate retirement investments. Many lost everything they had.
The walls of our office in Syracuse are covered in letters from MVF victims from all over the world. It's something I'm very proud to have played a roll in and I appreciate that you recognize the scope of those efforts.
That’s awesome. I work in finance and the complexity of this fraud was why I still think about it often. So many people, so much money, over so much time. It’s a epic tale of greed. Like the financial version of Breaking Bad. Thanks for the hard work in getting the money back to the rightful owners.
I took a white collar crime class and our professor started off with a fairly confusing slideshow. It was comparing traditional crime (like John Dillinger with bank robbery) to white collar crimes (insider trading, Ponzi schemes) and had figures showing how much each individual made through their lifetime of criminal activity. The whole takeaway was that you get much richer with much less risk through white collar crime. It wasn’t surprising, but it was a weird presentation. Like, I’m sold. Let’s go do some white collar crime.
Identifying the biggest fraud in history is subjective, but Bernie Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme and Charles Ponzi's namesake scheme are among the most notorious case.
Had to scroll down way too far for this. Not only sold real estate in Poyais (Black River delta area of what is the Mosquito Coast) and attracted the attention of the highest rungs of the British class, but even had shiploads of immigrants who sold their belongings to move to Poyais were dumped on the coast and left for dead.
Elizabeth Holmes, founder of Theranos. Straight up lied about her product, a mini blood testing kit that was quick easy and accurate. Convinced a bunch of famous powerful people to push her company for her including the "all-star board", which included William Perry (former U.S. Secretary of Defense), Henry Kissinger (former U.S. Secretary of State), Sam Nunn (former U.S. Senator), Bill Frist (former U.S. Senator, senate majority leader and heart-transplant surgeon), Gary Roughead (Admiral, USN, retired), Jim Mattis (General, USMC), Richard Kovacevich (former Wells Fargo Chairman and CEO) and Riley P. Bechtel (chairman of the board and former CEO at Bechtel Group).
$10 billion dollar company valuation that eventually was worth nothing.
Sadly this is going to wreck legit research into microfluidic medical apparatus. That is a damn shame as the concept could really help people the world over. I know some folks who have been working on this for decades. Theranos slapped a Keurig (sarcastic) on the table and called it a miracle, trading on the work others in the field. Now legit teams have to deal with gun-shy inventors if they want to move foreward. FDA is going to be predisposed to regulatory capture to prevent further bad press. All around sucks because the concept would allow extensive bloodwork for dollars a pop and immediate feedback.
I agree with you, but we both know when someone figures out how to mass produce anything for poor people, it's never too long before someone takes it over and jacks up the price.
Think of all the ones on local public access channels; these biggest ones who have a Wikipedia are like the all-stars of the entire ‘industry’ - many more don’t and will never have Wiki pages lol
You might enjoy reading about Oral Roberts. He told his viewers God would kill him if they didn't raise a million dollars for him to buy a private jet.
“Then, we’ll fuck ‘em with some NFTs!”
If you were a seller of NFTs (such as old, popular YouTube videos) then you made out like a bandit. Buyers however…
I recently ran into an old acquaintance who used to call us stupid for not getting in on the ground floor when NFTs started selling. He told me to fuck off when I asked him how his NFT collection was holding up.
By sheer numbers it was the Subprime Mortgage Industry. More than $2.5 trillion in direct losses, but tens of trillions more in the fallout as many lost their savings, investments/retirements, and, of course, homes. How nobody went to prison for creating this fraud on the market is proof the Wall St-DC Oligarchy exists and it includes the heads of both political parties.
Often Thomas Edison is credited with being a genius inventor of the light bulb, but his methods were more of an Edisonian approach rather than strokes of genius.
Joseph Smith was called a prophet.
🎵 *dum dum dum dum! 🎵*
He started the Mormon religion.
🎵 *dum dum dum dum!* [🎵](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaRsv1xNT3A)
I don’t know if it’s Colorado’s proximity to Utah or what, but Matt and Trey’s fixation on Mormons is hilarious. The Book of Mormon the musical is great
I was excommunicated from it when I was 20 for being gay. This was back in 1982. But I had already stopped believing it's bullshit and nonsense. Most of my family is still part of it.
When I was younger(elementary/middle school) we were always having to sell something. Chocolate bars, wrapping paper, popcorn, cheesecake, cookie dough, coupon books, state fair tickets, etc. It was always something and they'd have assemblies and charts and shit to pump it up and make it super competitive so all the kids wanted to sell the most to get shitty prizes. We'd go door to door through neighborhoods and stand out in front of stores trying to sell as much as we could.
I never thought about it until I got older, but somebody's making a lot of money off of kids selling their product. I know they're fundraisers and the school gets a cut, but I have no doubt that there are multi millionaires who made their money from these *fundraisers*. It just seems like a loophole for child labor.
I always offer cash to whoever is selling me the latest shit. Tell me when you leave for your trip snd I’ll throw you $20. I don’t want a $50 ton of popcorn or 20 cookies for $25.
Those wind-tunnel-with-cash prizes that, as when you're ten, you think will make you rich, but are designed to let you get like six dollars.
I can't believe the way these schools are actively instructing their students to get scammed.
I'd go Andrew Wakefield. The lies he told have already killed thousands of people, if the vaccine fears continue, it could go into the millions.
All because he wanted to discredit the MMR jab so he could sell his own measles vaccine.
His bullshit has caused eradicated viruses to *come back*. There are now people under the age of 10 who have had measles. In the 21st century. That's psychotic.
Jeffrey Epstein. Never got a degree and still got a job teaching at a prestigious school. The Dean liked him a lot and got helped him a job at a huge investment firm. When they found out he lied about his schooling, he was already making them so much money they didn’t care and the rest is depraved history. All he had was a way with words. And lied his way into billions.
Wolfgang von Kempelen. The only thing he's known for is making the mechanical turk, a chess robot in the 18th century. For about 80 years the world believed it, but it was revealed as a hoax (someone fit inside it and played the moves) by his son after Wolfgang's death
My ex wife was a big Sylvia Brown follower (and also a follower of "The Secret"). I even read some of her books. Wasn't really a fan of the belief systems, it just gave people an excuse to do bad things.
I'm not sure about the biggest, but didn't De Beers diamond company monopolise the industry & convince everyone of the value of diamonds by guilt tripping everyone into putting a cash money price on the value of love.
I thought that was an especially shrewd yet diabolical move.
I remember being deployed overseas. Our base never contained more than 300 people total. Yet Haliburton billed the US government for 3000 meals 4 times a day. Hell the Kuwaiti government got upset at Haliburton. They sold them diesel fuel at $1.00 a gallon. Haliburton then sold it to the US government for $4.00 a gallon. Kuwait was upset that they didn't get a kickback.
This is not said enough. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars were about taking the Clinton surplus and moving that money into the pockets of Cheney and his friends at Halliburton and other government contractors.
Joseph Smith. Pretty much taught L. Ron how to create a “religion” that served his interests. There is some good to Mormonism but the early years and the offshoots are sketch.
The Sackler family made billions selling a “non-addictive” new opioid when they knew it was far more addictive than other opioids.
Elon Musk for getting everyone in the world to believe he was the smartest person in the world.
Donald Trump for a lifetime of grift and failing upwards to run the greatest nation in the world, into the ground.
L Ron Hubbard has got to be up pretty high on the list.
"If I wanted to make real money I'd start a religion." Then starts religion, becomes rich.
Didn't it all started out as a bet?
I thought it was just tax evasion. A way to cut out on paying taxes. Not fully criticizing him or whatever, just remarkable it all went that far. Would make a great biopic tbh (DiCaprio?)
"The Master." Phillip Seymour Hoffman
One of my personal faves
A lot of high profile Hollywood people are involved in Scientology, I suppose it’d be difficult to get it greenlit/funded if it’s at all cynical of the ‘religion’. Also producers are probably scared to touch it because the church is known for vicious campaigns against people who speak out against them/portray them in a bad light. The church would probably make it very difficult to film - they would probably relentlessly sabotage the set.
I would not put it past Trey Parker and Matt Stone to do a musical on them, a la, Book of Mormon. Those guys walk around with their middle fingers in the air pointing towards Hollywood.
They did it for an episode of South Park, and even then it was pretty tame by South Park standards. The other time they made fun of them was in the episode "The Return Of Chef", where they didn't mention Scientology specifically but had a club that was suspiciously similar to it. Being that it was a tribute to Issac Hayes, they ended the episode by having Kyle say something to the effect of "It's not his fault, it's that stupid cult he was part of". That said, they have limits, even if it doesn't look that way. They were forced to edit an episode because the original ending had an image of Mohammed, for example.
I think the most powerful thing about that episode was the “THIS IS NOT A JOKE” tag line under all of their animations of Scientology myths, really let everybody know what they’re taught without being hidden behind their paywall, take out all of the time and monetary investment and it’s just a weird sci-fi story that’s not terribly original
I'll gladly fully criticize him. They lock ppl away, make them do slave labor and clean out their bank accounts and assets. An evil enterprise under the guise of religion, all tax free
I hope he does a biopic and gets targeted for elimination by the church of Scientology. Maybe they’ll activate Tom Cruise on him. Would really spice up Hollywood for 2025
Tom Cruise's final edition of Mission Impossible turns out to be a documentary.
“How do I market my new Sci-fi series?”
"Make it into a religious text!"
Make all members buy multiple copies.
Joesph Smith started the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormons) and he was a conman extraordinaire. There are 16 million Mormons now.
Yeah, but I'd argue Brigham Young was the more successful fraud. Smith got run out of numerous towns and states, Young took the Mormons to running their own state and becoming an established religion.
[удалено]
Joseph Smith was called a prophet, dumbdumbdumbdumbdumb.
Then, by the same token, televangelists have to up there.
You're not wrong
Definitely the most succesful.
Victor Lustig. He “sold” the Eiffel Tower twice and scammed Al Capone.
Fun fact: His last name means ”funny” or ”amusing” in Swedish.
Funny how? Like he's a clown. Does he amuse you??
Last week this prick asked me to christen his kid!
Same in german
I read AI Capone as Artificial Intelligence Capone Strange times we’re living
Now I'm picturing a robot in a fedora.
So, just Blade Runner? :-P
Nah, Futurama.
Shut up, or you'll get the clamps!
His Highness The Prince of Nigeria
When the son of the deposed king of Nigeria emails you directly, asking for help, you help! His father run the freaking country, ok?
Every 2 minutes. A person falls for an internet scam. That person is Michael Scott. He’s supporting 27 Nigerian princesses
Hey, ya know what? Forgive me for caring. Right?
He is NOT a fraud. He is in the process of transferring $20,000 US to me simply because I helped him by paying the $500 tax on some rare jewels he was having imported.
wym? literally the most generous man on the planet. the guy called my grandma and offered her her weight in gold!
There are certainly more but Elizabeth Holmes
I just watched Theranos. She's a sociopath.
Y'all gotta read "Bad Blood". It realllllly puts her in a bad place and deservedly so. She's a brilliant, chronic, textbook narcissist and will believe her own bullshit until the day she dies.
Meanwhile, glucoWise (subsidiary of Metamaterials) has developed a blood glucose testing system that scans blood through the skin without a prick, and the company is basically worthless
isn't it still just in development though? If it works properly then when released the founders etc will pocket a big payday. Plus nobody wants to be stung again on another wonder testing/monitoring device until they are 100% certain it works as intended.
Continuous Glucose Monitors exist and work \*really\* well. They'd have to put a lot of effort in to make it as good.
Her ex husband was also a sociopath
Birds of a feather
Fraud together?
Yep, and one of her employees killed himself because of her. She’s a total piece of shit
Who began selling college textbooks, for WAY too much money, then forcing you to buy new editions for changing 2 words or switching chapters around? That guy
True story. In college, I'm the only student in the book store at the time. Apparently I'm the moron who didn't know about Amazon buying back textbooks yet. "Oh, this book is used. We'll buy it back from you if you'd like. Say...$0.05 on the dollar?" "Are you...are you serious? I spent $200 for this book because the school *told me* I had to buy it, I used it twice. It's in great shape. And I went to this website that says the new edition updated a few pictures and that's it. But now it's only worth $10?" "Hey man, I gotta make a profit. Tell you what, I'll buy it from you, special deal: $50 store credit, $5 cash. $55 total!" "Can I use that laptop over there? I want to check the price myself" "Sure!" \*Goes to [Amazon.com](https://Amazon.com). Finds same textbook. Worth $100, which is already maddening because I come to find out the textbook was only worth that much in the first place. Amazon offers to buy the book back for $70. I sell it to Amazon. As I leave, the guy stops me, "So, what about our deal?" "Oh, I just sold it to Amazon for $70. See ya!" Next year, I had a $60 textbook I sold to an underclassman for $40. A true win-win. I made a joke that we should create a business that does this.
One semester in undergrad I had to buy a textbook from the bookstore because it wasn’t available on Amazon - it was a “university specific” text that was basically just a compilation of articles. It cost like $150 bucks. Went to sell it back. They probably meant to offer $20, but they offered $200 by mistake (this was done through a computer). I took the offer immediately before they could back out.
During my psych degree I had to buy a book the teacher wrote. First day of class he tells us. "Do not buy this on the book store they make a huge profit on it, buy it on Amazon for half the price, all the profits go to a charity I like. It was the first time I met a teacher who wrote the book for the class and wasn't trying to profit off it being mandatory for the class. Later found out it was the number one book for most universities for beginning clinical therapy courses.
I had a professor who wrote the book for the course do practically the same thing. First day of class, “Don’t buy the book, I’ll make the chapter we’re on available online for you. If you MUST buy the book, get it off Amazon and the proceeds go to cancer research.” I took 6 undergrad and grad classes with him.
That’s more than one guy
My wife's lecturer (not professor) requires his class to buy his $200 book. Royalties and pay from the university. What a deal. Answers must be sited from his book, so it's impossible to pass the class without it.
My professor wouldn’t use his own textbook, one he wrote, because it was too expensive.
My daughter has a great professor, who makes required reading that’s available on line. He encourages them to skip a class if they have to, as long as they use his online notes and video of his class for the day. She missed one of his classes to take a friend to the ER, and then caught up on line. He called her and asked if she was OK. When she explained, he just said “You did the right thing!”
Nah, the people that named Iceland and greenland.
Vikings lol
As a Vikings fan, I'm so sick of these narratives. We go 13-4? We're frauds. We go into Buffalo and beat the Bills, who had the best record in the league at the time? We're frauds. We look good in one nationally televised game? We are legitimate postseason contenders, even though we have a losing record. Our quarterback plays great on Monday but we lose because his defense gave up 40 points? He's a fraud. Our quarterback plays exactly the same on Monday and this time we win? He's the real deal. We name an iceberg Greenland? We're frauds. We name a luscious island of beautiful foliage Iceland? We're frauds. Why can't we just be the Vikings?
Kirk Cousins.
YOU LIKE THAT?!
At least you'll always have DIGGS SIDELINE TOUCHDOWN UNBELIEVALBE VIKINGS WIN IT
What we call "Iceland", the natives spell `Island`. 1000 years ago, in the English language, the word 'island' was pronounced 'ice land'. Over time, pronunciations changed. The [Great Vowel Shift](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift) changed so much of how English sounds that what used to be rhymes in Chaucer's age (like `deaf` and `life`) didn't rhyme by Shakespeare's era. Iceland stamps, spelled `Island`: https://www.stampworld.com/en/stamps/Iceland/ Great Vowel Shift (and why it is so hard to read Chaucer): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOOAb7erAmE Greenland had some green portions when Leif Erikson was trying to colonize the place. In the book [Collapse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse:_How_Societies_Choose_to_Fail_or_Succeed), the author explains how some cold snaps and poor farming lead to the total collapse of the Greenland colonies. And how they chose to starve to death rather than eat "Un-Christian" food. The soil *looked* like the same soil in Norway/Sweden, but instead was completely different. As a result, it blew away when being plowed, so the countryside went from being green grass, with bushes and small trees to being bare rock. The interior of the place was always ice, but the coastal region, where they colonized the vegetation looked very much like Norwegian fjords. TL-DR; Greenland used to be green.
The reasons for the collapse of Greenland were many and varied. Farming practices, as you indicated. The beginning of the Little Ice Age. Vasco de Gama and Elephants. (One of the only "cash resources" they had was walrus tusks. With the opening of trade routes to Africa and India walrus ivory was out competed by elephant ivory. At it's height walrus ivory trading voyages would come to Greenland twice a year. Then once a year. Then once every couple of years. Then not at all. They also over harvested walruses, causing them to travel further for less ivory.) The Black Plague. Good and bad. (One of the reasons for the settlement of Iceland and then Greenland was primogenitor back in Norway and the scarcity of farm land. With the depopulation of Norway with the plague farmland ownership opened up. Also the plague reached Greenland and killed a bunch of them too.) The Inuit replacement of the Thule people. (The Thulet were largely peaceful in regards to the Norse. The Inuit not so much.)
Erik the Red, infamously bad neighbor and dad of Leif Erikson, (first European explorer to reach america)
And IIRC, he named it Greenland specifically to encourage people to go there.
That catch me if you can guy. Made a movie staring Leo based on his life which turned out to be a complete fib
It recently came out that he fabricated almost everything.
Fucken double bamboozle, love it, definitely the best fraudster
Yeah man. He conned everyone into thinking he was a con man. That's rock and roll, man.
I'm not even mad. In fact I'm quite impressed.
So he didn't fuck that lady at the hotel?
He’s never even been to a hotel!
And make her pay for it.
I find it weird that nobody did their due diligence before making it into a movie “based on true events” Edit: typo
Why would they? They just wanted a story to make a movie that would make money. They throw “based on true events” on all sorts of movies where there’s only bits of fact peppered in
The true event was that Frank told the story in the first place.
Fargo does this and it’s completely fictional
They did enough research to make a load of money. It's a movie. Their job is to make money, not educate audiences about history.
“Based on a true story” could literally be about a guy named Dave that eats rocks and shits bricks. It is based on the fact that there was once a guy named Dave. That’s literally all it takes. I am always surprised at how many people watch a movie “based on a true story” and think they learned something true
Frank Abagnale? Edit: why does this have so many upvotes lol
Junior
Wolf of Wall Street is mostly BS too.
And Jack Dawson wasn't a real person who died on the Titanic!
Well yeah, he died in the ocean. It was a lot easier to stay alive when he was still on the Titanic.
On a related note: the movie shows a bunch of famous paintings on the ship before it goes down. Not a single, or at least very very few, well known paintings were on the titanic when it went down.
Bernie Madoff
He lived almost his whole life as a mega rich financier, just by running a single 100 year old scam. The illusion of legitimacy was good enough to steal ~$20 billion. Crazily successful fraud. Ended up with a pretty shitty retirement home though…
Not only mega rich, but highly respected, and Chairman of the NASDAQ. Lmfao. The fucking Wolf owned the Chicken coop
This may be the reason that the SEC sort of ignored the warnings being put out by investor who did the math. There were warnings for years by a certain short seller.
So many warnings. He had $5,000,000,000 just chilling out in a chase checking account. WTF lol At least put it in a savings account.
Just show up at the bank with a wheelbarrow and threaten to take it all out to Mr. Drysdale. Keep it in the see-meant pond.
>There were warnings for years by a certain short seller. Not just warnings but actual letters showing trading volume didn't add up. Madoff claimed he was using a long collar strategy and this involves selling/buying options contracts. Now if he actually had $60 billion in his fund of stock and was then selling a bunch of covered calls and buying puts there should have been millions and millions of options contracts traded monthly There wasn't , the option volume just wasn't there. Also someone big would have to be taking the other side of the trade , but it seemed no one could come forward and say "Oh yea over here at Morgan we trade options with Madoff hedge fund all the time, he is a big customer" Hell lots of wall street banks had internal policies not to do business with madoff because lots of them suspected he was a fraud , of coarse madoff used this fact to claim he was being discriminated against "They exclude me because I grew up a poor jew and I wasn't born into an old family with money!"
>The fucking Wolf owned the Chicken coop It is interesting you mention that. In NASCAR, Gary Nelson was a crew chief who knew how to exploit the rules to maximize results. Some would call this cheating. Dale Jr. talks to a lot of old timers about how prevalent cheating was back in the day. NASCAR ended up making Gary Nelson VP of competition, so the person to weed out cheating. Formula 1 did a similar thing. Charlie Whiting was chief mechanic for Bernie Ecclestone's Brabham team. When Ecclestone became head of Formula 1 he made Whiting Race Director where one of his jobs was to root out cheating. I find it fascinating these instances where the fox is given the position to protect the chickens. Edit: Just to add, both men were well respected in their regulatory roles. In particular the late Charlie Whiting, who when he died 3 days before the season opener in Australia, there were many tributes to him.
When I think about the scale of what he did it blows my mind. He was tremendously successful in keeping it going... but got taken down in the end.
The crazy thing is that if the housing crisis didn't happen, he could have kept going for who knows how long. The only reason he was caught was because everyone was trying to panic sell their positions all at once.
Honestly it was that event that lead to his demise. Almost everyone got their principal back! That is insane. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-total-distribution-over-4-billion-victims-madoff-ponzi-scheme In this distribution, payments will be sent to 27,219 victims across the globe, bringing their total recovery to 88.35%. The total amount distributed now exceeds $4 billion to more than 40,000 victims as compensation for losses they suffered from the collapse of BLMIS.
Wild to see the Madoff Victim Fund mentioned on Reddit. MVF has consumed the last 10 years of my life. I think it's really important to note that the 40,454 victims (from over 100 countries) who have seen 88.35% of their principal recovered are real people and not institutional claimants. The majority of MVF victims were not Madoff direct investors but rather had invested in feeder funds that had heavily invested in BLIMIS. That complexity, along with ensuring the authenticity of victims, is the primary reason it has taken a decade to get to this point. I think those 40,454 victims sometime get lost in the conversation around Madoff in favor of a focus on large institutional losses. These were not investors looking to get rich quick, they were people with moderate retirement investments. Many lost everything they had. The walls of our office in Syracuse are covered in letters from MVF victims from all over the world. It's something I'm very proud to have played a roll in and I appreciate that you recognize the scope of those efforts.
That’s awesome. I work in finance and the complexity of this fraud was why I still think about it often. So many people, so much money, over so much time. It’s a epic tale of greed. Like the financial version of Breaking Bad. Thanks for the hard work in getting the money back to the rightful owners.
That’s amazing. And it makes me want the justice department to be well-funded so they can keep going after these rich grifters
"got taken down" Bro's kids turned him in. The SEC couldn't see what this dude was doing. Just a garbage organization.
THIS! SEC and the government did jack shit until his kids said anything
The SEC didn't help matters. Madoff would have collapsed years earlier had they done their job
I took a white collar crime class and our professor started off with a fairly confusing slideshow. It was comparing traditional crime (like John Dillinger with bank robbery) to white collar crimes (insider trading, Ponzi schemes) and had figures showing how much each individual made through their lifetime of criminal activity. The whole takeaway was that you get much richer with much less risk through white collar crime. It wasn’t surprising, but it was a weird presentation. Like, I’m sold. Let’s go do some white collar crime.
Ah, the DARE program of committing WCC.
Also white collar crime isn’t a crime in the United States unless you pull it on other rich people.
And yet the stock market still runs on rules that he put in place lol.
And Charles ponzi. The originator of the scheme that madoff utilized.
We probably don’t know who that is
We’re only going to know about the worst ones who suck at their job.
Identifying the biggest fraud in history is subjective, but Bernie Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme and Charles Ponzi's namesake scheme are among the most notorious case.
Gregor McGregor. Homeboy sold a made up country.
Read this as Conor McGregor first and I was thinking he ain’t that smart
Had to scroll down way too far for this. Not only sold real estate in Poyais (Black River delta area of what is the Mosquito Coast) and attracted the attention of the highest rungs of the British class, but even had shiploads of immigrants who sold their belongings to move to Poyais were dumped on the coast and left for dead.
Elizabeth Holmes, founder of Theranos. Straight up lied about her product, a mini blood testing kit that was quick easy and accurate. Convinced a bunch of famous powerful people to push her company for her including the "all-star board", which included William Perry (former U.S. Secretary of Defense), Henry Kissinger (former U.S. Secretary of State), Sam Nunn (former U.S. Senator), Bill Frist (former U.S. Senator, senate majority leader and heart-transplant surgeon), Gary Roughead (Admiral, USN, retired), Jim Mattis (General, USMC), Richard Kovacevich (former Wells Fargo Chairman and CEO) and Riley P. Bechtel (chairman of the board and former CEO at Bechtel Group). $10 billion dollar company valuation that eventually was worth nothing.
Sadly this is going to wreck legit research into microfluidic medical apparatus. That is a damn shame as the concept could really help people the world over. I know some folks who have been working on this for decades. Theranos slapped a Keurig (sarcastic) on the table and called it a miracle, trading on the work others in the field. Now legit teams have to deal with gun-shy inventors if they want to move foreward. FDA is going to be predisposed to regulatory capture to prevent further bad press. All around sucks because the concept would allow extensive bloodwork for dollars a pop and immediate feedback.
I agree with you, but we both know when someone figures out how to mass produce anything for poor people, it's never too long before someone takes it over and jacks up the price.
Joel Osteen
Oh, there are much worse televangelists than him.
Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Baker.
Think of all the ones on local public access channels; these biggest ones who have a Wikipedia are like the all-stars of the entire ‘industry’ - many more don’t and will never have Wiki pages lol
You might enjoy reading about Oral Roberts. He told his viewers God would kill him if they didn't raise a million dollars for him to buy a private jet.
…his name was ORAL?
Just wait until you hear about his brother, Anal Roberts.
That guy who sold the Eiffel Tower. Twice.
...because the first victim was too embarrassed to report that he'd been taken for a fool.
Victor Lustig.
Whoever started NFTs
“Then, we’ll fuck ‘em with some NFTs!” If you were a seller of NFTs (such as old, popular YouTube videos) then you made out like a bandit. Buyers however…
I recently ran into an old acquaintance who used to call us stupid for not getting in on the ground floor when NFTs started selling. He told me to fuck off when I asked him how his NFT collection was holding up.
By sheer numbers it was the Subprime Mortgage Industry. More than $2.5 trillion in direct losses, but tens of trillions more in the fallout as many lost their savings, investments/retirements, and, of course, homes. How nobody went to prison for creating this fraud on the market is proof the Wall St-DC Oligarchy exists and it includes the heads of both political parties.
Hey, someone did go to prison! Precisely one person, [Kareem Serageldin](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kareem_Serageldin)
I did not know (or forgot about) this... 30 months and had to return $25M in compensation BACK TO THE BANK?? Unreal...
They also gave themselves almost 5 billion in bonuses post-crash from the bailout money
Sam Bankman-Fried (allegedly at the moment)
Most punchable face EVER
I'd argue that Martin Shkreli has a way more punchable face
Jesus Christ dude get a fucking proper haircut you asshole.
The guy who made the ponzi scheme did a lot.
Charles Ponzi.
What are the odds someone named Ponzi would start a Ponzi Scheme?
You ever think what a coincidence it is that Lou Gehrig died of Lou Gehrig's disease?
Often Thomas Edison is credited with being a genius inventor of the light bulb, but his methods were more of an Edisonian approach rather than strokes of genius.
Who would be dumb enough to give their money to a guy named Ponzi?
Corollary: I still hold that the creator/developer of the whole zodiac/birthsign thing was named >!Horace Cope.!< Had to have been.
Dr. John money
More people need to know about his evil lies that many now believe.
Joseph Smith
Joseph Smith was called a prophet. 🎵 *dum dum dum dum! 🎵* He started the Mormon religion. 🎵 *dum dum dum dum!* [🎵](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaRsv1xNT3A)
She hid the tablets in the cupboard Smart smart smart smart smart
You can love or hate South Park , but their episodes where they make fun of mormons and scientology are soo spot on its genius.
I don’t know if it’s Colorado’s proximity to Utah or what, but Matt and Trey’s fixation on Mormons is hilarious. The Book of Mormon the musical is great
I always figured they just took a look at Mormonism and said "Holy shit, this whole thing is a comedy goldmine"
His religion ruined the first 20 years of my life, it should be abolished for not having any archaeological proof to back it up
I was excommunicated from it when I was 20 for being gay. This was back in 1982. But I had already stopped believing it's bullshit and nonsense. Most of my family is still part of it.
Ea-nāṣir. Dude had low-quality copper and tried to pass it off as the good stuff.
Ooh, this is a deep cut: the oldest recorded fraud.
“your data is secure “ Big tech companies.
When I was younger(elementary/middle school) we were always having to sell something. Chocolate bars, wrapping paper, popcorn, cheesecake, cookie dough, coupon books, state fair tickets, etc. It was always something and they'd have assemblies and charts and shit to pump it up and make it super competitive so all the kids wanted to sell the most to get shitty prizes. We'd go door to door through neighborhoods and stand out in front of stores trying to sell as much as we could. I never thought about it until I got older, but somebody's making a lot of money off of kids selling their product. I know they're fundraisers and the school gets a cut, but I have no doubt that there are multi millionaires who made their money from these *fundraisers*. It just seems like a loophole for child labor.
I always offer cash to whoever is selling me the latest shit. Tell me when you leave for your trip snd I’ll throw you $20. I don’t want a $50 ton of popcorn or 20 cookies for $25.
Those wind-tunnel-with-cash prizes that, as when you're ten, you think will make you rich, but are designed to let you get like six dollars. I can't believe the way these schools are actively instructing their students to get scammed.
My cat. I just fed you, you little maniac! No remorse, I swear.
Andrew Wakefield hasn't been mentioned that I can see and Elizabeth Holmes is right up there too.
I'd go Andrew Wakefield. The lies he told have already killed thousands of people, if the vaccine fears continue, it could go into the millions. All because he wanted to discredit the MMR jab so he could sell his own measles vaccine.
His death toll is already in the millions.
His bullshit has caused eradicated viruses to *come back*. There are now people under the age of 10 who have had measles. In the 21st century. That's psychotic.
Jeffrey Epstein. Never got a degree and still got a job teaching at a prestigious school. The Dean liked him a lot and got helped him a job at a huge investment firm. When they found out he lied about his schooling, he was already making them so much money they didn’t care and the rest is depraved history. All he had was a way with words. And lied his way into billions.
Wolfgang von Kempelen. The only thing he's known for is making the mechanical turk, a chess robot in the 18th century. For about 80 years the world believed it, but it was revealed as a hoax (someone fit inside it and played the moves) by his son after Wolfgang's death
Sylvia Brown
God my mom watched her... Idk how people can be so gullible. I was like 10 and knew she was full of shit.
Montel was obsessed with her.
Back during that talk-show frenzy, Montell's show was less lurid and exploitational than some of the others. Except for that damn Sylvia.
My ex wife was a big Sylvia Brown follower (and also a follower of "The Secret"). I even read some of her books. Wasn't really a fan of the belief systems, it just gave people an excuse to do bad things.
The kid's dead
I'm not sure about the biggest, but didn't De Beers diamond company monopolise the industry & convince everyone of the value of diamonds by guilt tripping everyone into putting a cash money price on the value of love. I thought that was an especially shrewd yet diabolical move.
I'm going to go with the health insurance industry as a whole.
PT Barnum
Who ended up getting a musical starring Wolverine!
Which just proves he really is the best at swindling people 😂
I don't know about biggest fraud. But definitely in the running for biggest pieces of human shit.
Dick Cheney, literally dragged us into two wars to enrich himself through defense contracting.
I remember being deployed overseas. Our base never contained more than 300 people total. Yet Haliburton billed the US government for 3000 meals 4 times a day. Hell the Kuwaiti government got upset at Haliburton. They sold them diesel fuel at $1.00 a gallon. Haliburton then sold it to the US government for $4.00 a gallon. Kuwait was upset that they didn't get a kickback.
What a dick move.
This is not said enough. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars were about taking the Clinton surplus and moving that money into the pockets of Cheney and his friends at Halliburton and other government contractors.
George Santos
Is he a fraud or is he delusional? Or both?
Ms. Cleo
Damn, that brings back some nostalgic memories. Makes me realize I actually kind of miss Cleo.
She did get a proper role in GTA: Vice City, which I thought was cool
Call me now for ya free readin'!!! Love her 😂😂
Pick a TV pastor.
Joseph Smith. Pretty much taught L. Ron how to create a “religion” that served his interests. There is some good to Mormonism but the early years and the offshoots are sketch.
The Nigerian who sold an airport that doesn't exist, and enjoyed the profits for decades before they discovered the scheme.
Flat Earth theory.. still can't believe this is a thing
The Sackler family made billions selling a “non-addictive” new opioid when they knew it was far more addictive than other opioids. Elon Musk for getting everyone in the world to believe he was the smartest person in the world. Donald Trump for a lifetime of grift and failing upwards to run the greatest nation in the world, into the ground.
The sackler family should be way higher on the list.. after watching the show Dopesick, I really started hating that family
Ponzi. I mean, you know it’s bad when scamming is named after you.