Le$$ons from the Great Cheaters
Got a cheating story? Send it in!
Chapter 28 of the book is called “Deny, Deny, Deny” and has le$$ons from the likes of Raphael Palmeiro, Ken Lay, Richard Nixon, and Eve.
Great Cheater Allen Stanford’s obviously read an advance copy, because he’s perfected the techniques outlined therein, right down to the tears:
Stanford denies fraud, threatens interviewer
The Cheater Says: Ladies, find yourself a good man. Make sure he’s a sorta-desperate creative type. Get a job in casting. Dangle that carrot in front of him forever, but never give him an audition for even the smallest role. That’s good cheating.
Oh, totally unrelated, Kreisler’s woman is the casting associate on the new Greg Mottola film “Adventureland.” Opens tomorrow. Everyone who got a role (this does not include Jeff) is going to be rich and famous.
Please don’t go see it.
… thanks to the jailing of Bernie Madoff, the admission of A-Rod, the buh-bye of Ashlee Simpson, and the where-he-at? of Tom DeLay… there is no more cheating.
Sorry.
Right here in lil’ ol’ Manhattan, “Art dealer held over $88m fraud.”
The Cheater says: Rich people are great targets for cheating!
a. They think they’re too smart to be scammed, and
b. as this student of my methods knows, they’ll never admit they don’t know a thing about art.
Ego + ego = easy pickings.
(Ironically, those who can afford to lose millions on art usually got those millions themselves by, mmm hmm, cheating).
The Times reports that 25 Hedge Fund managers made $11.6 billion in ’08.
The Cheater says: Run a hedge fund!
Not a reserve of cash to pay your gardener, hedge funds are big green bales of cash separating the lawns of prosperity from the sidewalks of poverty. Their managers gets at least 1% of the value of the fund, regardless of how it performs, then another 20% of the profit.
Easy pickings:
Manage a $1 billion hedge fund, so get 1% ($10 million) off the top. If you make no money, take that $10 mill. Or, lie and say the fund made $100 million, then take 20% ($20 million) of that. Or, steal the whole $1 billion, and take the $10 mill, too.
(What do you do later when people question your numbers? That’s right, you restate your past financials, declare bankruptcy, get immunity from your Congressional friends, and move to Turks & Caicos!!! Hooray!)
You’ll be the envy of your smarter, more experienced, harder-working friends. Your poor friends.
A very funny writer/satirist Fred Wickham runs a great blog, Bullseye Rooster. He was somehow duped into writing this about moi:
Get Rich Cheating
One of my favorite comedy blogs – one that, IMHO, is the most consistently interesting, informed, and useful – is thecomicscomic, run by my friend Sean McCarthy.
I just fooled him into writing about my random Cramer-Stewart connection. Despite weak material (i.e. me), he did a great job. Read it here.
Madoff goes behind bars
Stanford takes 5
The Palin PR ruse falls apart
Cramer admits rigging the game.
Kreisler suckers you into pre-ordering Get Rich Cheating.
