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Ponzi: The Incredible True Story of the King of Financial Cons (Library of Larceny) - Softcover

Dunn, Donald

 
9780767914994: Ponzi: The Incredible True Story of the King of Financial Cons (Library of Larceny)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0767914996 ISBN 13: 9780767914994
Verlag: Crown, 2004

Inhaltsangabe

Just who was the man whose name has become synonymous with the classic “rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul” scam in which money from new investors is used to reward earlier ones?  In December 1919, he was an unknown thirty-eight-year-old, self-educated Italian immigrant with a borrowed two-hundred dollars in his pocket.  Six months later, he was Boston’s famed “wizard of finance,” lionized by the public and politicians alike.  Based on exclusive interviews with people who knew Charles Ponzi, lent him their money, and exposed him, Donald Dunn’s Ponzi recreates both one of America’s most notorious and colorful financial con artists and the mad money-hungry era in which he thrived.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

DONALD DUNN, a former longtime Business Week editor, lives in New York.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

Just who was the man whose name has become synonymous with the classic "rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul" scam in which money from new investors is used to reward earlier ones? In December 1919, he was an unknown thirty-eight-year-old, self-educated Italian immigrant with a borrowed two-hundred dollars in his pocket. Six months later, he was Boston's famed "wizard of finance," lionized by the public and politicians alike. Based on exclusive interviews with people who knew Charles Ponzi, lent him their money, and exposed him, Donald Dunn's "Ponzi recreates both one of America's most notorious and colorful financial con artists and the mad money-hungry era in which he thrived.

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1



Almost as soon as August, 1919, gave way to September, a brisk and swirling wind hurried into Boston. It tore the leaves, which had only just begun to turn color, from the maple and sycamore trees in the quiet suburbs. Then it raced through the narrow streets of the business district with force enough to lift the heavy ankle-length skirts of secretaries and shopgirls an inch or two, exposing a glimpse of black stocking to the appraising gaze of nearby males, and all too frequently compounding the mischief by wrapping the unshrouded limb in a sheet of dirty, discarded newspaper blown from the gutter.

If there was one thing that the wind had declared war on, however, it was that popular element of male attire, the straw skimmer. All over town, from North Reading to Randolph, from Cohasset to Lincoln, closet doors were opened and the beloved--but lightweight--hats were tucked carefully away on upper shelves to hibernate until the following May.

The instantaneous and mass disappearance of the skimmer made the one worn by Charles Ponzi that windy September day all the more noticeable. It sat atop his head like a crown, and he wore it with an assurance that no wind would dare disturb it. As he strode purposefully along the street, Ponzi even tilted the disc of straw back to a more rakish angle, revealing a flash of sandy hair above his high, lightly furrowed forehead, and adding that much more height to his stature. Today, he wanted every fraction he could obtain. Only five-foot-four, he knew well that he lacked an imposing physical appearance--a helpful quality to possess when a man is out to get money.

Charles Ponzi was out to get money. A lot of it. And in the sixteen years that he had been trying to get rich in America, he had learned that any number of things could compensate for limited stature and physical strength. A confident tone of voice, for example; a tone that indicated its owner knew precisely what he was doing at all times. A dapper appearance, too; an appearance that said--from the well-shined shoes, the pristine celluloid collar above the tightly knotted tie with its small diamond stickpin perfectly centered, the casual breast-pocket handkerchief, and the rakish straw hat--that here is a man who, if he is not already successful, will latch onto success at any moment. And then, of course, there was the smile. Always, the smile; for a smiling man is obviously not worried--and who would give money to a worried man?

Ponzi was smiling as he stepped through the doorway of the small Italian restaurant at the corner. Although it was midafternoon, a few candles in wine bottles covered with drippings had already been lit in a vain attempt to dispel the chill of the overcast day. It took a minute for him to focus his eyes in the flickering gloom. Then he saw his uncle, not in his accustomed place behind the massive mahogany bar, but slumped over a thick stack of invoices at one of the tables.

"Uncle John," Ponzi called affectionately.

The older, heavier man looked up, blinking his eyes at the silhouette against the frosted glass door. "Carlo? Is that you?"

"Of course it's me," said Ponzi, moving toward him, arm outstretched and the smile as wide as it could be. "I took the trolley halfway here to see you--and let the wind blow me the rest of the way."

His uncle was pumping his hand now. "Well, you lookin' fine," he said. "You ain't been here in a long time. Six months, no? How's Rose? How's she feel? No baby yet?"

Ponzi laughed. He pulled a chair from a table and sat easily, sliding a Murad from its pack and lighting it in the flame of a candle. He drew deeply on the cigarette, then let the smoke glide from his lungs.

"Your niece is fine, just fine. And the babies will come. Give us time. We've been married just over a year."

"Sure, sure, Carlo, I know. But my wife--she want things fast, like back home. Everybody want the big family."

Ponzi watched his uncle move to the bar and fill two glasses with a deeply red wine. "You have a big family already," he laughed. "There are more Gneccos in Somerville and the rest of Boston than mosquitoes in New Jersey!" He waited for the older man to grin before he added casually: "Besides, I don't want to start raising kids until we're all set financially."

His uncle set one of the glasses before him. "You no working, Carlo?"

Ponzi threw his head back. "I'm working," he said, "on something that is going to make me rich--and make your niece rich--in a very short time."

The older man's voice was suspicious. "Carlo, I been in the liquor business, the restaurant business twenty-five years now. I know nothin' else. My English, you know it, it ain't good. But you been sayin' since you marry Rose that soon you be rich. First, you a clerk at that company with exports and you say you be rich--"

Ponzi held up his hand. "The only thing J. R. Poole gives its employees is promises. I could have been there fifty years and I never would have gotten my hands on anything besides my salary! Old man Poole sees to that, all right." He gulped the wine, emptying half the glass. "Nobody's going to get a piece of his sardine factory in Maine or his meat plant in Kansas City. I didn't leave my mother in Parma, I didn't come here and knock all over the country, picking up English along with nickels and dimes to eat on, so Poole could have me translate his letters about million-dollar deals into Italian." He paused to look around the restaurant.

"Look, Uncle John, you've got this place of your own. You know you don't get rich working for other people."

The older man sighed. "Sure, sure," he said softly. "I got my own place. I make the good money. Then 'long come the goddamn prohibition! Carlo, how I make the money when I don't sell the liquor no more? You tell me that, hah?"

Ponzi shook his head. All over the country, restaurant owners and liquor distributors were pondering the same question. His uncle, like others, had talked many times of wholesaling foodstuffs to other restaurants. But the profit margins on food were a fraction of the ones on liquor. And the business was highly competitive, with massive problems of spoilage, agricultural shortages, and slow distribution. Ponzi was well acquainted with the difficulties in selling food. His first job after marrying twenty-year-old Rose Gnecco had been to assist her father and brothers in their business of supplying fruits and vegetables to the pushcart vendors and stands that dotted Boston. Within a year, the Gnecco Brothers operation was bankrupt.

Ponzi's uncle remembered, too, suddenly. "You had the chance to run a business, Carlo, with the fruits and vegetables. You would make the big money, you said."

"What about the time I got the three carloads of matches at half-price?" Ponzi snapped. He smiled over his glass and drained it. "I ordered them, knowing our company didn't have the money to pay for them when they'd arrive. But then I sold them before we took delivery--and got cash in advance. We made eight hundred dollars! That's the way to do business!"

"But suppose you ain't found a buyer so soon? How you pay for 'em when they come?"

Ponzi shook his head, laughing. "You never think that way, Uncle John. You just know you're going to find a buyer--and you do. When Rose's father put the company into bankruptcy, I told the judge that if he'd let me have the six thousand dollars we still had left, I could double it in a year. Then I could pay off the eleven thousand we owed. I could have done it!"

He went to the bar and stretched for the wine, returning to...

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Verlag
Crown
Erscheinungsdatum
2004
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0767914996
ISBN 13 
9780767914994
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
384
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
gpsr@libri.de
gpsr@libri.de

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