Con Men, Ponzi Schemes, And Hucksters - America's Heart And Soul, Aren't They Wonderful?

So against the grain I serve to produce events and do what's irrational because I am commanded to. For all their indisputable intelligence, men take this farce as something serious, and that is their tragedy. They suffer, of course ... but then they live, they live a real life, not a fantastic one, for suffering is life. Without suffering what would be the pleasure of it? It would be transformed into an endless church service; it would be holy, but tedious (The Devil – Ivan’s Nightmare, Brothers Karamazov)

 

Dostoevsky’s Devil is a vaudevillian, a comedian who serves to spice things up.  What would life be without me? he asks. “It would be holy, but tedious”. People take life far too seriously, he says.  In a seamlessly moral world there would be no carnivals, circuses, tearful public apologies, or great novels. Life is only a carnival of mountebanks, carnies, bearded ladies, babies with two heads, and sideshows.  

America's history is one of snake oil salesmen, shady used car salesmen, big tent preachers, Bernie Madoff, Enron, Sam Bankman-Fried, and Rudy Kurniawan. Every generation produces at least one, and the sheer gall and the chutzpah of their the outrageous, impossible scams is a thing of wonder.  Of course every culture has a few of these creative geniuses, but not so perennially or so universally.  America is the hoodwink capital of the world, and in fact, it is our heart and soul. 

Imagine the sheer energy, the delight, and the untoward enthusiasm of those young Wall Street wunderkind cooking up these credit swaps and magnificently hedged and hidden financial instruments that created an empire out of nothing, that returned nothing, and promised nothing except to them, fabulously wealthy and spending like drunken sailors while their packages of sub-prime mortgages bundled in a system of fluid transfers of fake money, bought and sold on expectations of the wealth of Croesus, circled and twirled, and finally crashed. 

It is hard to imagine the likes of Bernie Madoff, who sold his rich Jewish golfing partners a complete bill of goods, bankrupting them in the end when his elaborate Ponzi scheme collapsed.  When creditors came recover what they could of their investments, the found nothing but spare change. 

Rudy Kurniawan, a young man with a palate from God, masterfully sold counterfeit wine to his wealthy connoisseur friends.  He got never-bottled wine seconds from French producers, used hi-tech to produce 100 year-old label look-alikes, and given his advance-man generosity and display of fine taste, he made a fortune.  He was banking on the fact that in the wine market nobody actually ever drinks the wine.  It is just bought and sold like any other equity.  

Old-time big tent revival preachers made millions off of gullible souls, promising them an easy path to salvation for only a few dollars a week  Modern day televangelists made even more, and convinced those who financed their high-flying lifestyle that his wealth was a sign of divine compensation.  These men were bald-faced, irremediable crooks who had no compunction lining their pockets with God's money. 

What is modern 21st century politics but one big scam? Campaigns of hot air, empty promises, and an unbelievable fol-de-rol of platitudes, and cockamamie feel-good schemes for 'the nation's betterment'. 

P.T. Barnum of circus fame once said, 'There's a sucker born every minute' and that adage became the meme of the Republic.  Everything in America is for sale, and the enterprise is chicanery.  Commercial advertising has never been anything but a fancy snake oil jamboree.  Selling products that no one needs and convincing them they do take genius, and these marvelously seditious ads are everywhere. 

Although there have been plenty of pretenders to his throne, none understood the absolute gullibility of the American consumer than Barnum.  No matter how exaggerated his claims or preposterous the creatures in his side shows, people packed his big tent and kept coming back for more.

The list of evangelical hucksters is long and storied.  Starting with Amy Semple McPherson, many followed in her footsteps - Billy Sunday, Elmer Gantry, Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and Rick Warren. Every Sunday these pastors and many more like them sold a bill of goods to the faithful who packed their revival tents and mega-churches, filled the offering baskets, and wrote generous checks.

Dostoevsky suggests that Christ was the original huckster, offering man the promise of redemption and salvation but guaranteeing him nothing and consigning him to a live of hunger and misery.  Christ’s rejection of the Devil’s temptations in the wilderness and His crafting of a message of hope to billions who would follow him – “Man does not live by bread alone” – was no more than a bill of goods.

Everyone is on the make – salesmen, politicians, Hollywood moguls, evangelical preachers, and the Catholic Church.  Ivan, railing at Christ says that the Church never took Him seriously but were overjoyed at His words which provided the foundation for millennia of deception, manipulation, and venality.

This ethos is not the purview of the extremely talented or crafty. Franchot Gunn was an ordinary man with a silver tongue and an effusive charm, and no one could resist him. Professors, women, colleagues, supervisors, and competitors were all seduced by his grace, intimacy, and personal concern.  They had no interest in really knowing who he was, what motivated him, or from what compassionate or spiritual spring his sympathy and understanding came.  He was so good at his elegant ballet, that people were enticed, engaged, and finally hooked

There really was nothing of great interest beyond Franchot’s engaging smile and direct, warm gaze.  “Charm and a silver tongue will get you everywhere”, he told his young son. “The only lesson you will ever need to know.”

Everyone in America who has bought into the American dream relies on his wits and ingenuity to make way, and Franchot Gunn was a minor genius - no Bernie Madoff but a canny, calculating huckster.  

Everyone is deceptive and deliberately so.  The fact that they get caught in their lies does nothing to alter the equation – lying is the rule, honesty a tedious ideal, and the conflict of the two the stuff of theatre.  If people are as good as we hope, then we – as Ivan’s Devil suggests – would be bored to tears.

 

Franchot Gunn’s deliberate deception worked like a dream. His silver tongue enabled him to lull even his harshest professional critics.  Hours of revisions of proposals, reports, and company white papers were avoided because of his ability to convince people of the irrefutable logic of his arguments and the rightness of his cause.  

His ability to marginalize enemies and build almost universal support among the staff gave him carte blanche. His charm was so convincing that even his severest critics never knew that he had hung them out to dry. He set his own hours, worked at his own pace, produced responsibly if sometimes superficially, and had more time to himself and his personal ambitions than anyone else he knew.

Despite his repeated and continually sexual indiscretions, his wife never had a clue.  Or more correctly, suspended her disbelief at his stories because of his enchanting charm and simple, heartfelt expressions of love and consideration.  His deception was so artful and so complete that she was the last to know about Franchot’s lovers and paramours. 

When he eventually did get caught – no one said that his elegant deceptions were foolproof – he was able, thanks to his silver tongue, to blend apology, contrition, love, and forgiveness into such a reasonable and emotional package that his wife again ignored even the most obvious signs of his infidelities.

Was any harm done? Not in his mind.  His wife and colleagues were all adults with reason, sense, and will.  The free market did not only apply to the buying and selling of products, but to stories, ideas, and character. There was no right or wrong in human commerce, just transaction; and deception was always been a part of it.

“Look at it this way”, Franchot explained. “The ends justify the means” He knew that in the marketplace of human nature he might one day meet his match and be snookered, taken for a ride, or hung out to dry. “Equal opportunity”, he smiled.

Franchot Gunn was never taken in, seduced, or entrapped by anyone else’s silver tongue and charm. He was too good and too smart.  The nice thing of it all was that no one wanted him to come a cropper.  He had fooled so many people into thinking of him as the ideal lover, colleague, and friend that no one resented his successes or the ease with which he accomplished them. He was a modern hero.