Follow the Bouncing Balls

The end of the year is nigh and it's time to tie up a loose end or two. Recently a Blob regular in the guise of Richie Cunningham's Mom, Mrs. Cunningham, wanted some information on Ponzi schemes, the pyramid-type swindle perpetrated by now infamous Wall St. con man Bernard Madoff, for 30 some odd years and only recently uncovered.


Wouldn't ya know it...I have an answer, but like everything else economy related these days it's a bit convoluted. I urge you to bear with me and hunker down, settle in, sit back etc. as I present the new concept of Conspiridence, (that grey area between conspiracy theory and coincidence) and apply it to the current Ponzi situation in particular and the larger field of sociopathic behaviour, especially as it relates to men entrusted with power and/or our money, who should know better.


Those of us who've never come face to face with a con man imagine a Prof. Harold Hill type from the Music Man http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI_Oe-jtgdI
(the Simpson's "Monorail Guy" for you kids out there http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC56hnyiP_s&feature=related).
A sweet talkin' fellah who could sell you anything, has almost no regard for others and at the core genuinely believes we're all dumb marks just waiting to be taken. These guys (sometimes gals too) have chutzpah to spare or in other words; the biggest balls in the room.


OK...meat and potatos time: When I first heard about Madoff and the Ponzi scheme (named after Charles Ponzi, one of the most notorious conmen of all time) it occurred to me that by combining two beloved Happy Days character names; Potsie and Fonzie, we arrived at the word Ponzi. That was only the beginning. All three of them have thick, luxurious hair and Anson Williams (who played Potsie) was born in 1949, the very year that Charles Ponzi died!!


By combining Potsie's likeability and trustworthiness with Fonzie's charisma and big balledness we get the archetypal conman persona. In fitting with true conspiridence theory this leads directly to the 3 men who displayed the biggest balls of all in 2008. Here's a little chart I put together that should help out:

All three, presented from left to right in order of testicle size, displayed unparalleled hubris:

• Edwards by running for president as an earnest defender of the downtrodden while cheating on his devoted, cancer ridden wife.


• Blagojevich, by trying to profit from a great moment in history (thereby tarnishing it and Obama in the process), refusing to relinquish power once arrested, and today, after attempts to sell the senate seat backfired, appointing a new Illinois senator despite pleas not to.


• Bernard Madoff, by running a scam for 3 decades that bilked billions from reputable charities and trusting investors alike destroying thousands of nest eggs in the process.

In the grand scheme of things Ponzi with his hair and conartistry leads to the combined name and personality of Potsie/Fonzie who channel the hair and callousness on to Blagojevich and Edwards and actual sociopathology and Ponzi scheme itself to Madoff!!

Madoff's flimsy pyramid crumbled because the economy tanked and people wanted to cash in their investment gains. He'd never actually invested anything and was just using new investor's money to pay off other investors. Now, with the stock market in free fall, there were no new investors and he owed billions of dollars which he didn't have. Game over

That's the beauty of conspiridence.....a few baseless inferences, a couple of cobbled together coincidences and you've got yourself a grassroots movement, a book deal and a speaking tour (see 9-11 conspiracy theories). I guess it's true what they say about a sucker being born every minute...now buy my book.