By Curmudgeon
Ms. R. Walsh has an interesting column up at the Salt Lake Tribune site. It compares Ponzi schemers Madoff and Southwick and finds a common element in their skulduggery:
But the men -- one convicted and the other accused of being a con artist -- had one thing in common. They recruited those they knew. It's the predictable stuff of a Ponzi scheme. What's unexpected are the social and psychological similarities between their bicoastal marks -- Utah Mormons and East Coast Jews. A sense of being special led both groups to fall for the oldest trick in the book.Walsh's piece goes on to discuss some characteristics of Utah that she thinks make it a particularly fertile field for Ponzi schemers, and especially for those who hunt out their co-religionists as marks.
Madoff found investors at the exclusive Palm Beach Country Club. Southwick found his at church. Madoff's victims paid the club's pricey fees for the chance to brush with the investment whiz and his proxies. Southwick used current and former Mormon bishops and kept a photo of his family with LDS Church President Thomas S. Monson in his office....
More than taking advantage of proximity, Madoff and Southwick plied a unique knowledge of their clients' culture and armchair psychology to get greed to kick in.... Southwick's subscribed to Utah's twist on Calvinism: Riches must be proof of righteousness.
