Mitchell Zuckoff quotes

When running a Ponzi scheme, how does one avoid enormous, unexpected withdrawals - runs on the bank, so to speak - that would pull back the curtain and reveal a little man blowing smoke? One way would be to attract a core of investors who could be counted on to never withdraw more than a small percentage of principal each year. (Mitchell Zuckoff)

Sending a book out into the world is a lot like sending your child to the first day of kindergarten. You hope the other kids play nice and that she makes friends.

Mitchell Zuckoff

We've suffered a "Ponzification" of the economy in recent years, as bubbles have built up and then burst, and each time we act as though it's the first time.

Mitchell Zuckoff

Every swindle is driven by a desire for easy money; it's the one thing the swindler and the swindled have in common.

Mitchell Zuckoff

I was researching a different World War II story when I came across an article in the 'Chicago Tribune' from June 1945 that knocked me for a loop. The article explained that a military plane had crashed in an impossibly remote valley of New Guinea that had been nicknamed Shangri-La.

Mitchell Zuckoff

I think more and more, in places like Benghazi, in places like Iran, we have to be asking the question, can we trust the local government to protect our people?

Mitchell Zuckoff

There are very few people whose names come to symbolize their achievement, even if it's a negative achievement.

Mitchell Zuckoff

I know that plenty of folks have issues with Social Security, but I'd urge them to confront it on its own terms. Calling it a Ponzi scheme is misleading and does more to cloud the issue than it does to illuminate it. And yes, I do know that unless changes are made, the current system is unsustainable. But that doesn't mean it's fraud.

Mitchell Zuckoff

No Ponzi schemer tells anyone exactly how it works. The purpose of a Ponzi scheme is to trick people, to take the money and run.

Mitchell Zuckoff

For starters, let's dispense with the cheap jokes about cannibalism. That means cracks about giving an arm and a leg - sorry - for a good book on the subject, or similar tasteless - sorry, again - attempts to make the subject more palatable - last one.

Mitchell Zuckoff

Most travel disasters turn into something else: a story of survival, a story of bravery, of heroism, sometimes villainy. You just don't know when it starts where it's going to go because they are unexpected events. (Mitchell Zuckoff)

Ponzi and all of his successors tap into a fundamental part of human nature. One part of our brain tells us this is too good to be true. The other side tells us this is too good to miss. The key to any con is getting a mark to tip to the too-good-to-miss side.

Mitchell Zuckoff

Nathaniel Philbrick's 'In the Heart of the Sea' has rightfully taken its place as a classic for its literary merits. It has a special place in the cannibalism canon as well.

Mitchell Zuckoff

As a journalist, you're always worried, 'Did I get the full story?'

Mitchell Zuckoff

The State Department has promised they will never have another temporary mission facility like the one in Benghazi that is so lightly protected. But at the same time, history tends to repeat itself here, and so it might not repeat itself in exactly the same way as Benghazi.

Mitchell Zuckoff

I need to know everything inside quote marks is true.

Mitchell Zuckoff

The combination of Ponzi's huge personality and the enormous if brief success of his scheme, combined with the tremendous publicity which surrounded it, is ultimately what attached his name to it.

Mitchell Zuckoff

Bob Altman got nothing from the TV series 'M*A*S*H,' and the royalties for the theme song went to his oldest son, Michael, who wrote it as a 15-year-old poet!

Mitchell Zuckoff

My favorite pre-Ponzi schemer was known as '520 Percent Miller' because he promised 10 percent returns a week, or 520 percent a year. Of course he was just using new investors' money to pay old investors, and soon he was on the lam.

Mitchell Zuckoff

Fear is something i don't you experience unless you have a choice. If you have a choice, you're liable to be afraid. But without a choice, what is there to be afraid of? You just go along and do what has to be done.

Mitchell Zuckoff