Rooster: A Lesson in Scamming
Rooster: A Lesson in Scamming
Columbus looks nationwide for next police chief, BP vs. Lake Erie, and more.
I’ve had “Old Country Road (Remix)” stuck in my head for 120 hours. Normally this would result in a hospital visit. Instead I have ended longtime friendships over lack of respect paid to the hottest song of 2019.
I don’t drink lean or own a horse or drive a tractor or wear Wrangler. I should hate everything about this song—like I do with every other country song ever produced. And yet I’m pondering trading in my car for a hood horse.
YOU CAN HUSTLE PEOPLE WITH ANYTHING USING THE PHRASE “GUARANTEED RETURN ON INVESTMENT”
The older I get, the more I resent my parents for imbuing me with a conscience because holy hell being a grifter looks easier with every passing day. I thought swindling couldn’t be easier than poorly edited emails from Nigerian princes, but apparently you can build a fraud empire around used oversized tires.
The downside is greed is a helluva drug, and at some point the cops may knock on your door.
From Marc Kovac of dispatch.com:
A southern Ohio man pleaded guilty in federal court in Columbus on Monday to 10 counts for his role in a Ponzi scheme that defrauded dozens of investors of $50 million.
…
According to court documents, from 2012 to 2018, Adkins and others orchestrated a multimillion-dollar scheme that involved promises of buying oversize tires used on construction or mining equipment at steep discounts and then reselling them at higher rates.
Adkins and others involved promised “at least 20 percent” returns on investments, but funds instead were used to repay earlier investors or for the perpetrators’ own benefit. According to prosecutors, Adkins bought cars, vacations and real estate with some of the proceeds.
“Making good on early investments perpetuated Adkins’s scheme by appearing to corroborate his claims, which helped him attract more investors,” Benjamin C. Glassman, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, said in a released statement. “What the victims didn’t know was that Adkins was paying off early investments with the money from later ones. Although the product that Jason Adkins was purporting to buy and sell — oversize tires — was unusual, the operation of his scheme was not. It was right out of Ponzi’s playbook.”
Despite once earning a “C-” in Intro to Macroeconomics at Ohio State, I am not a legendary capitalist with searing insights on how to build wealth in America. However, after spending my childhood in a con artist haven like Marion Ohio, let me just say criminals love to cloak their schemes under the flag of “investment.”
Scammers boast about “guaranteed return on investments,” and the number is usually north of 15% because getting rich without actually laboring is an intoxicating idea to millions of Americans.
Criminal greed fascinates me. This guy made $50 million before the jig went up in smoke. I can’t imagine scamming my way to $10,000 and continuing to do more crimes instead of assuming a new identity and moving to a country without an extradition agreement.
COLUMBUS FINALLY LOOKING OUTSIDE NOTORIOUSLY CORRUPT POLICE DEPARTMENT FOR NEW CHIEF
It only took a federal investigation into a corrupt vice unit, a criminal cop murdering a woman, and the politically motivated arrest of one of President Business Deals’ most vocal critics for Columbus to finally second-guess its time-tested technique of promoting a police chief from within the department.
From Nick Evans of wosu.org:
As part of a nationwide search, the first in city history, Columbus will accept both internal and external candidates. But first, Mayor Andrew Ginther explains, they’ll survey local residents to help craft the job description for the Columbus Division of Police’s new leader.
"We want to hear from more of our residents, of all ages, backgrounds and experiences, they will help us shape the job description that we post," Ginther says.
Columbus Police is currently being led by Interim Chief Tom Quinlan, a 30-year department veteran who previously served as deputy police chief. He took over from Chief Kim Jacobs, who served seven years as the department's first woman and first openly gay chief before stepping down in February.
Ginther’s inaction on criminal cop activity directly led to a national scandal. The upshot for Columbus is he will now listen to community members for input on the words used in a job posting.
Words don’t mean anything at this juncture. The only move is hiring someone from outside Columbus with no ties and allegiances to the power structures within the CPD. Anything less would be a travesty.
BP SPENT $302,000 TRYING TO DENY LAKE ERIE RIGHTS
Environmentalists across America are using one weird trick to combat our federal government’s denial of climate change. The gambit involves giving political rights to polluted bodies of water.
Toledo residents, disgusted with the state government allowing rampant pollution that causes algae blooms, recently voted to enshrine Lake Erie with all the rights personhood entails. The measure is currently on hold as the court system parses its legality, but it turns out a British oil conglomerate did not want the iconic lake to gain additional rights.
From Toledoans for Safe Water:
Toledo, OH: Yesterday, the post-election campaign finance reports from the February 2019 Special Election revealed that out-of-state opponents of the Lake Erie Bill of Rights (LEBOR) spent almost 50 times as much as Toledoans for Safe Water, the group trying to protect Lake Erie. Toledo Jobs and Growth Coalition, which formed to oppose the LEBOR, led a well-funded campaign against the citizens initiative during the special election. Nevertheless, more than 61 percent of Toledo voters voted in favor of Lake Erie.
BP Corporation North America, Inc., based in Houston, Texas, is listed as the sole monetary donor to the anti-LEBOR campaign, donating $302,000 with a wire transfer on February 12, 2019. Toledoans for Safe Water spent a total of $5,899.57 to advance the LEBOR.
Toledo Jobs and Growth Coalition list campaign payments to Yellowstone Associates for consulting and New Troy Strategies for targeted direct mail, phone calls, radio ads, and text messages. Both organizations are based in Virginia and registered to Mary Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, according to the Virginia Secretary of State website.
$302,000 is probably a half-second of profits to a goliath like BP. It’s still telling that they’re willing to blow six figures trying to convince residents that protecting the Great Lake in their backyard is actually against their own interest.
SUBURBS LOSING SWAGGER
Suburbs became a thing in post-WW2 America because white people were terrified by the black family that bought a house on their block. I would rather die than live in a place like Dublin, and it looks like more and more Columbus residents agree with me because they’re moving downtown.
At this rate Columbus’ downtown might have a viable night scene within 10 years. The downside is new housing construction significantly lags behind population growth. If Columbus leaders were half as progressive as they pretend to be, they would do something about this!
MIAMI UNIVERSITY UNVEILS NEW, INEVITABLLY INEFECTIVE RULES FOR FRATS
Miami University is the worst college in Ohio. I don’t mean academically. I mean that I have never once met a Miami alumnus who didn’t torture neighborhood animals as a child. It’s also the latest Ohio university to debut new rules that won’t prevent fraternities from doing what they have done since their inception, which is binge drink and ritualistically haze freshmen who are looking for friends in all the wrong places.
From The Associated Press:
New rules aimed at preventing fraternity hazing have taken effect at Miami University in Ohio where a student recently reported being beaten and forced to drink excessive amounts of alcohol in a fraternity hazing.
A university incident report stated last month that the student complained of being blindfolded and abused during a March 16 "hazing ritual." The student said he was taken to a hospital after saying he felt like he was "going to die."
The university's Delta Tau Delta fraternity chapter was suspended and both school officials and Oxford police launched an investigation in the wake of the report, the Hamilton-Middletown Journal News reported. The national Delta Tau Delta fraternity has said it is working with the university to investigate.
Miami’s bold plan includes online training courses on “leadership and accountability” while also requiring frats to have “live-in house directors.”
As an adult with more than 38 brain cells, I would need at least $300,000 a year to live in a frat, and even that might not be enough. American colleges refusing to eradicate Greek Life remains one of the more perplexing issues of our times.
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