Hacker Cinema
American Greed
2007 · TV series · documentary · 43 min episodes · 15 seasons
A dissection of the dark side of the American Dream, a survey of how far some people go to become rich, no matter the cost to themselves and those around them. Real-life cases are reviewed and involve such criminal activity as credit card scams, identity theft, counterfeiting and Ponzi schemes.
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18 comments on Hacker News
It is a reference to a TV show: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Greed
The second largest (on paper, at the time) biodiesel credit producer in the US was completely fraudulent:
https://www.reuters.com/article/epa-biofuels-lawsuit/trading-firm-sues-us-epa-over-biofuel-credit-scam-idINL2E8FJCP820120423
And he wasn't caught because the EPA did their jobs (they didn't). He got caught because he bought a ton of sports cars and his neighbors assumed he was a drug dealer or something similar and got local PD to start investigating.
Edit: there was an episode of American Greed about it too - https://m.imdb.com/title/tt6806100/plotsummary/?ref_=tt_ov_pl
In the early days of automated billing at the defense department there were a couple of ladies that figured out they could way over bill for small things like nuts and bolts. There’s an American Greed episode about it. They eventually got caught because they accidentally sent the same invoice twice and that flagged the system and triggered an investigation. Episode is from 2010
https://imdb.com/title/tt2378874/plotsummary/?ref_=tt_ov_pl
I had been warning about Celsius for months, in fact I even published this blog post last year: https://rorodi.substack.com/p/the-biggest-crypto-lending-company
Also posted it here on HN but it did not get much traction. What really baffles me is that major VCs have put hundreds of millions into what pretty much every one who has watched one or two episodes of "American Greed", would immediately recognise as being a ponzi scheme.
I e-mailed the regulators, the VCs etc... They did nothing, and now it is too late.
Not a book but CNBC's series "American Greed" is great. My favorite episode was about a guy who was (on paper) the second largest biodiesel producer in the country. He was literally just making up fake green energy credit numbers in a spreadsheet and selling them to companies looking to buy green energy credits.
The EPA was made aware of him but did nothing even after they physically inspected his biodiesel "factory" and discovered it was basically just an empty warehouse.
What finally brought him down was his taste for expensive sports cars and his being an asshole neighbor. He was always parking his sports cars pn the street, blocking school bus stops, etc. Local parents suspected he might be a drug dealer because of how many cars he had and how lavishly he spent his money, and they asked the local police to look into him. It was the local investigation that uncovered the fraud and brought him down.
https://advancedbiofuelsusa.info/rodney-hailey-sentenced-to-more-than-12-years-in-prison-for-selling-9-million-in-fraudulent-renewable-fuel-credits/
It would make a great "American Greed" episode. He got lucky, 7 years is rather on the low end. Usually for running a ponzi scheme this big in the US you get at least 15 years.
Sounds like a good candidate for an American Greed episode.
This is generally true, but that TV show "American Greed" has shown a number of folks that tried to get the riches without actually dying. I wonder how many have pulled it off.
>Then I saw that American greed is actually one of the best shows on TV.
It is:) Over the years I have watched every episode and now have status of "All caught up" Hulu.
I torrent a lot of TV shows. And American Greed popped up a lot. I always dismissed the show until they they recently did a ep on the Fyre festival. I consume every bit of media about the Fyre festival. I Watched the ep about it. Then I saw that American greed is actually one of the best shows on TV. So I set Sonarr to grab every episode. It grabbed 114 of them. And I have now watched them all all.
But 80% of the episodes deal with Ponzi schemes claiming unrealistic returns. Part of me feels bad for the people. The other part doesn't since they think they can get a 5% return a month. If you can do 5% a month wall street will toss trillions at you.
There was an episode of American greed about a woman using a high end printer to make fakes, they would sell them on a home shopping network style tv show. Literally selling well known artists work. Everyone would win the auction for the "one of a kind authentic" piece.
Fun fact, she spelled chagel wrong and the buyer asked about it.
A friend recently moved into a new apartment. She only got 4 channels, one of which almost exclusively shows American Greed and Forensic Files. I've been pleasantly surprised by how interesting the show is! It's particularly interesting when you see episodes that happened within a couple hours of wherever you live.
> Since his friends and family invested in this company, I figured that he had skin in the game so I let my guard down, turns out he fucked them over too.
This sounds like an episode straight out of 'American Greed' show / Series on CNBC. Sorry you got screwed. I guess lesson learned.
American Greed episode on Silk Road:
http://www.cnbc.com/live-tv/american-greed/full-episode/silk-road-digital-drug-dealers/776671299708
So, the situation will be no worse than it currently is, but with the upside that more information would be available, and tons of money would not be wasted on stupid investigations.
I do recommend you watch "American Greed" on CNBC.
CNBC also did an episode of "American Greed" on Rudy Kurniawan. It was pretty interesting as far as that show goes.
http://www.cnbcprime.com/american-greed/video/american-greed-who-is-ruby-kurniawan/
Turning into an epic fiasco, I'd say. This story is unfolding like the second half of every episode for American Greed that I've ever seen on CNBC. You'd swear it's the same story over and over just the character names have been changed.
My prognosis is Bitcoin will survive and thrive as a technology, but current Bitcoin businesses and investments are about to take a big hit.
Or explicitly making the wrong friend.
CNBC has this show I like to watch called American Greed where they talk about people who do scams from large to small.
They had a great episode about the guy he got caught dealing with Raj Rajaratnam
Episode summary here: http://www.cnbc.com/id/45555924
If you scroll all the way to bottom you can even here a recording of one of their conversations