The Flim-Flam Gals

 

 I have come to this conclusion. People aren't very smart.

My kin would say people have a lot of "book smarts" but they lack common sense. Or as my dad would say, "Horse sense".

I say this based upon watching a couple of TV shows.  You can't say I haven't done my research.

We've been watching the Hulu series "The Dropout," which is about this smarty pants blonde that whoo-dooed a bunch of corporations along with some wealthy and powerful men.

Her pitch: she has a vision. The vision: give her a  bunch of money.  Her plan:  become very rich and appear on magazine covers.  How:  you see here, we have this machine that will diagnose all sorts of maladies with, now watch closely, with one drop of blood.

That sounds sort of far-fetched, even if we live in the days of miracles and wonder.  But hey, twenty-five years ago, we were still taking photographs with a camera and schlepping the film to the drug store for development like a loser.

This young lady was Elizabeth Holmes, a college dropout who discovered the way to get powerful corporations with bright, well-credentialed executives to give her money was to wear tight black turtlenecks, which helped to emphasize her considerable bosoms.  (The actress who plays Holmes has considerable bosoms, but I don't know if Holmes does in real life. I also saw "Considerable Bosoms"  open for the Talking Heads)

She wears the turtlenecks when she is talking to her board, which has the likes of Henry Kissinger,  Jim Mattis, and George Schultz on it. I can guarantee you this thought was running through the minds of these august and distinguish men as she was going "blah, blah blah, one drop of blood":  She sure is built.

Goals vanish. Promises are broken. Deadlines were missed. But all Elizabeth has to do is put on her magic turtleneck and the men that stared down the Soviet Union were putty in her hands.

Her machine that was supposed to revolutionize health care never came close to working.  So she did the next best thing: obtain a device from another company and taped her company's name (Theranos) on it.

George Schultz's grandson got hired in, and soon he turns on Elizabeth because even though he almost flunked out of college, he could tell nothing worked at the company.

The Wall Street Journal gets involved and exposes Elizabeth as a fraud and (SPOILER ALERT) causes Theranos to shut down. In January of 2022, Holmes was convicted of fraud and is awaiting sentencing while living in a mansion with her Uber-rich husband.

All of the people involved were highly educated, and most of the board graduated from Ivy League Schools. So how could they fall for such a stupid scheme that is just one step above "I can tell you where you got them shoes"?

FOMO? (Fear of missing out)  Old men taken in by a pretty girl that sort of sounded like she knew what she was talking about. (Most likely)

Or is it my new theory: maybe people aren't as smart or as they (we) think they are.

Not that younger people are exempt from flim-flam artists. The other show in my research was "Inventing Anna," which is about this trailer trash girl from the Ozarks laundering drug money for an amoral couple from Chicago.

Check that. "Inventing Anna" stars Julia Garner, the aforementioned trailer trash girl from the show "Ozark," she plays a Russian who somehow convinces all of the New York party kids that she is a wealthy German heiress.  Garner does this by talking loud and shouting obscenities as she does in "Ozark," except this time she does it with a Russian accent.  Think Eva Gabor with Tourette Syndrome.

She tries to obtain loans for a fake foundation and basically sponges off her friends. Then, she gives a seminar on how to "gaslight" your friends for fame and fortune.  Even the movie falls under her spell because the reporter that exposes her feels sorry for her at the end of the series. This has something to do with the Subprime Loan Crisis of 2008. Whatever.

But again, the people she fleeced are people that should have been skeptical of a con. They went to all of the best day schools and colleges. On top of that, they were NEW YORKERS.  

They were also YOUNG and lived in THE DIGITAL AGE.  How could they fall for something like, "MAH FARTER HADDN'T WHYARED ME THUH MUNNEY YET.  WHA ARE YOU SO STOOPID?"

Maybe they think women can't be con artists.  Maybe they was so busy looking down their nose at the fly over people who fall prey to everything they didn't know they were vulnerable to the con too.

Maybe they didn't realize there's a sucker born every minute.