Greedy, Gullible, Gone!
by MF HamHow Wise guys invest!
A major news item in East Tennessee currently is the story of another fine, upstanding financial advisor who died suddenly by his own hand, with no help from Dr. Kevorkian necessary.
This extremely thoughtful citizen spent over an hour at a local funeral home making his own arrangements and then shot himself in the parking lot. Well. . . actually he shot himself in the face (ugh) but the deed was carried out in the parking lot outside the funeral home. Handy, at least.
After the initial news of this bizarre happening, the real story gradually appeared in the media. Day after day, one well-known business person after another filed claims and lawsuits against this gentleman's businesses, estate and assorted banks involved in processing pertinent financial instruments. The instruments were mostly cashier's checks, some made out to the deceased's accounts and others direct to other "investors." Claims are reported to be in the neighborhood of $5,000,000---a nice neighborhood, indeed! The principal's name escapes me at this moment and there is nary a word about this affair in the Sunday paper. The name's unimportant but it could well have been Ponzi.
It seems many were hurrying to get their money to this individual as he had a golden opportunity to purchase stock options for about $29.50 per share for stock trading at about $44.00 per share. Would-be lucky participants should not procrastinate, however, as the deal was about to close. The amounts involved were in the hundreds of thousands and, of course, those checks made out directly to earlier investors were used to return handsome "profits" to those investors from previous deals.
No one seems to know right now where all the money went. Lawyers, individuals and banks involved are silent for the moment, and understandably so. These investors were for the most part well-educated, successful and respected business people, not just some ne'er-do-wells born with too much wealth and too little brains.
There's a lesson in here somewhere; maybe it's in the title of this post!
Irv