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A Daily Journal headline offered an eleven-word precis of Leo’s methods: LAMBS SOUGHT OUT KORETZ AND BEGGED FOR A SHEARING; GOT IT. –p. 123
Someone – I believe it was @minkr0se but I can’t find my notes to confirm – recommended I read Empire of Deception by Dean Jobb. It was a very accurate recommendation, because Empire of Deception is an awesome nonfiction account of the greatest swindler of the early 20th century, Leo Koretz, who spent twenty years running a Ponzi scheme in Chicago. It is *kisses fingers* spectacular, especially if you’re a fan of Chicago history or of con men.
Even the gangster Al Capone, who made his money with threats and guns, was impressed: “It’s a racket,” he said. “Those stock market guys are crooked.” –p.80
Jobb manages to walk a really fine line when he talks about Koretz, because when you’re obsessively researching one thing it becomes really easy to obsessively regurgitate everything you’ve learned, even when it’s not relevant (and barely interesting). So I enjoyed in a conscious way that Jobb provided some historical context but not so much that he or I got distracted. You know just enough about the way Chicago was, and the way finance was handled, to understand the magnitude of what Koretz got up to with his crimes. And he managed to slip in a lot of great little slices of the sociology of the con man and also his cultural position with pop media of the time:
One scholar has discerned something quintessentially American about the con man, who reinvents himself to each new victim in the same way that America’s early settlers reinvented themselves in a newl and. The confidence man, argued Gary Lindberg, “is a covert cultural hero,” an ingenious and enterprising figure who exposes the gap between “our stated ethics and our tolerated practices.” –p. 84
Chicago editors, John McPhaul observed, subscribed to a time-honored axiom of journalism: “You can do well with a good crime story, but you can do better if you garnish it with sex.”
–p.132
Empire of Deception can be a little hard to read, because while Koretz cuts a mostly-sympathetic figure as a guy who got in over his head and also a guy who mostly “sheared” wealthy people who could well afford to eat a loss, he also really fucked up his entire family, and as a serial philanderer he humiliated his wife and brought the attention of the public down on several of his other partners who, being women, weren’t exactly treated with decorum by the police or media.
Jobb also doesn’t pull back from the way that Koretz’s identity as a Jewish man affected how he was portrayed in the media and in police reports. While there’s no denying Koretz was an affinity predator (someone who uses their relationships within their own tightly-knit minority group to scam other members) Jobb is capable and willing to call out anti-Semitism when he sees it in the historical record.
If you’re into true crime, con men, Chicago history, or early 20th century American history in general, I think it’s a great book. It starts out a little slow but it’s really rolling along by the end, and it’s got some nice Wealth Porn for anyone who likes to read about people shopping, too.
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Someone – I believe it was @minkr0se but I can’t find my notes to confirm – recommended I read Empire of Deception by Dean Jobb. It was a very accurate recommendation, because Empire of Deception is an awesome nonfiction account of the greatest swindler of the early 20th century, Leo Koretz, who spent twenty years running a Ponzi scheme in Chicago. It is *kisses fingers* spectacular, especially if you’re a fan of Chicago history or of con men.
Even the gangster Al Capone, who made his money with threats and guns, was impressed: “It’s a racket,” he said. “Those stock market guys are crooked.” –p.80
Jobb manages to walk a really fine line when he talks about Koretz, because when you’re obsessively researching one thing it becomes really easy to obsessively regurgitate everything you’ve learned, even when it’s not relevant (and barely interesting). So I enjoyed in a conscious way that Jobb provided some historical context but not so much that he or I got distracted. You know just enough about the way Chicago was, and the way finance was handled, to understand the magnitude of what Koretz got up to with his crimes. And he managed to slip in a lot of great little slices of the sociology of the con man and also his cultural position with pop media of the time:
One scholar has discerned something quintessentially American about the con man, who reinvents himself to each new victim in the same way that America’s early settlers reinvented themselves in a newl and. The confidence man, argued Gary Lindberg, “is a covert cultural hero,” an ingenious and enterprising figure who exposes the gap between “our stated ethics and our tolerated practices.” –p. 84
Chicago editors, John McPhaul observed, subscribed to a time-honored axiom of journalism: “You can do well with a good crime story, but you can do better if you garnish it with sex.”
–p.132
Empire of Deception can be a little hard to read, because while Koretz cuts a mostly-sympathetic figure as a guy who got in over his head and also a guy who mostly “sheared” wealthy people who could well afford to eat a loss, he also really fucked up his entire family, and as a serial philanderer he humiliated his wife and brought the attention of the public down on several of his other partners who, being women, weren’t exactly treated with decorum by the police or media.
Jobb also doesn’t pull back from the way that Koretz’s identity as a Jewish man affected how he was portrayed in the media and in police reports. While there’s no denying Koretz was an affinity predator (someone who uses their relationships within their own tightly-knit minority group to scam other members) Jobb is capable and willing to call out anti-Semitism when he sees it in the historical record.
If you’re into true crime, con men, Chicago history, or early 20th century American history in general, I think it’s a great book. It starts out a little slow but it’s really rolling along by the end, and it’s got some nice Wealth Porn for anyone who likes to read about people shopping, too.
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via IFTTT
