Eerie when a British mini-series based on a book written in 1875 seems to be describing The Way We Live Now. Anthony Trollope's novel of that name about the Ponzi-scheming swindler Melmotte* seems to be the fictional inspiration for the real-life Bernie Madoff (at least from what I've read about Ponzi schemes and Madoff). One character even accuses him of being the cause of the suicides of some prominent financiers. Melmotte sweet talks and bullies his way into people's pockets, taking the money meant for a Salt Lake City-Veracruz railway (which struck me as a stupid idea anyways...go west! not south!) for himself while all the while attracting new investors and pushing stock prices up, up, up, insisting that profit, not charity, is the driving force of humanity. Your obligation is to make yourself rich, he says, and that will improve the world more than charity ever could.
Melmotte's M.O. was to close down shop and move on before anybody realized they'd been fleeced. In London, he gets especially power hungry and obsessed with becoming a real English gentleman, decides to run for an M.P. seat, wins (his speeches are scarily persuasive, of course), and thus ends up staying in one place too long. People start getting suspicious, and in a move that I thought was arbitrarily moral (he's been stealing people's money this whole time, after all), he fumbles the forging of his daughter's signature but gives up trying, knowing his getting caught is impending. What does he do? He commits suicide, rather than face prison and public humility. And then a young and foxy Cillian Murphy, who had been fuming that the railroad wasn't actually getting built, got his railway anyways. The American, Mr. Fisker puts it simply, probably even with a shrug of his shoulders: this is how things always work out, the first wave of investors get screwed, but the money from the second wave actually gets routed to the actual project that was supposed to be funded all along.
What the?!?! After watching this, I am as wary and suspicious as ever of stocks and bonds and money that I can't touch or even visualize (futures trading? Does any layman understand that?). Is this how the world works? Nothing risked, nothing won, I guess, but I think I'm going to stay away from anything other than a mattress (or maybe a Swiss bank account) to store my money.
The Way We Live Now was deliciously unsettling and off-balance throughout; I was always stressed about characters trapped in different perilous situations. The ones about to lose all their money. The two girls with the playboy Felix who was just using both of them but skates by with no consequences. The crazy pioneer American woman, who once shot and killed a man who betrayed her (where? Orygone, of course!) who ensnares. Women who dare put love before marriage, and others who succomb to put comfort and position ahead of love. And a young and foxy Cillian Murphy to top it all off. (Eowyn and Moaning Myrtle also show up!) Definitely worth a gander.
*An anachronism, I know. Charles Ponzi was circa the 1920's. Why aren't they called Melmotte schemes? His name is too reminiscent of a cuddly cross between a marmot and a muppet? 'Ponzi' just has a slightly more crazy and posh connotation? 'They' (whoever they are) wanted to name the scheme after someone who actually lived and screwed over real people?
1 comment:
I just saw a Daily Show blurb on another early (pioneering?) Ponzi schemer...I suppose all this stuff gets interesting AFTER the fecal matter has made contact with the fan.
Also, British mini-series kept me alive in other countries. Yet another interesting phenomenon.
Post a Comment