No Sympathy for the Feeble Minded

There's a great show on cable called American Greed, which details money making schemes on large scales. Most of the episodes I have seen have centered around Ponzi schemes. While I'm not a financial wizard by any stretch, the concept seems simple enough in scope but doomed nonetheless: greedy person starts what seems to be a legitimate investment company; greedy person starts promising investors incredible returns on potential investments to get the ball rolling; greedy person then delivers on those promises by using investments from one person to pay off another while keeping any leftovers. The cycle continues with more and more investors until finally the government finds out or the company goes bankrupt due to no actual revenue being generated. The show's intended theme is to make the viewer dislike the greedy schemers as much as the people they have victimized. It works for the most part. I mean, there's no reason to feel bad for the schemers who have pocketed unearned cash from hard working regular folks. Fair enough. They're doing bad stuff and they eventually get jail time for it.

But the victims this show tries to paint such sympathetic pictures of are who I focus on more than the schemers themselves. They come on there saying stuff like, "Well (Schemer's name here) was promising to double my investment, so I sent in $5,000 just as a tester to see what would happen and sure enough I got a check for $10,000 a month later." Inevitably, the investors then start pouring in huge amounts of money as in life savings, retirement funds, mortgage payments, and trust funds. We, the viewers, are supposed to feel bad for them as they look into the camera and sniffle along. "That was my life, everything I had, and now I have nothing." Then they say stuff like, "That man's greed ruined my life, my family's life, and everything I worked so hard for." Yeah and I'm supposed to feel bad for you. Actually, dumbass, it was your own greed that ruined your life. You're just pissed because you got taken for a fool. You saw a return on an investment that was made on blind faith. You didn't do your homework on the company, you didn't bother to find out what the source of income was on that company, and you didn't ask any questions. You saw the money once and never looked back. Explain to me why I should feel bad for you for taking out your life savings and dumping it into an investment you have no knowledge of. The only difference between you and the guy who schemed you out of everything you had is he's doing jail time and you're not. The level of greed is exactly the same in my eyes, you just don't have the brains to concoct such a grand plan. So, no, I don't feel bad for you. Do your homework next time and quit having so much faith in the good of mankind. More often than not, mankind is trying to take its brethren for the proverbial ride.