Scam Artists, Con Men, Swindlers, and Bamboozlers

Who would pass up the opportunity to earn $100.00 to cut on a machine and watch it for six hours? Any offer that is too appealing is, under most circumstances, not a legit deal. These seemingly harmless deals in addition to a few others were masterfully puppeteer by Victor Lustig also known as "Count" Victor Lustig. He started off his career of crime with petty offenses that victims could not prove he did. On many sea voyages across the Trans-Atlantic he bilked and gambled money from the wealthy passengers onboard the cruise ships. Due to World War I his "business" plans plunged drastically because of people's lack of spending. This caused Lustig to look for other places to continue with his career the country he was drawn to was America. 

Not only did Lustig Participate in professional petty bilking also conned a bank, tried to sell the Eiffel tower and produced countless amounts of counterfeit money. His first "big" buck con was the bank thievery; he took advantage of a reposed ranch. Lustig made a deal with the bank in which he would give those 22,000 in exchange for 10,000. On the day of pickup Lustig took off with both of the share of money one of the perks of being a master con artist was his ability to talk that may not be much to some people but it got Lustig out of an indictment and he walked free. His next masterminded plan was to sell the Eiffel tower. The monument was becoming harder to care for and city officials thought of moving it or selling it for scrap. Lustig pretended to be a city official looking for a metal dealer to buy the tower; he took the man’s cash bid but when it came time to really receive the metal no legit city officials knew what the dealer was referring to.

The Rumanian Box could be Victor Lustig's greatest schemes. He claimed to box was a money duplicator, meaning that any bill could be copied and used daily. Lustig would tell the unlucky man or woman that the duplication would take six hours, which he would demonstrate for them to show his victims the machine really worked. He would then have the "client" go to the bank and have the bills verified by a bank teller. What the victim did not know was there were hidden bills in the machine so for the first few times after purchase the machine would seem to work but after that just a mahogany box. After each person paid for a money box Lustig would disappear; these boxes were not cheap "Count" Victor Lustig would charge as little as 10,000 and as much as 46,000.

 http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-smoothest-con-man-that-ever-lived-29861908/?no-ist
http://www.biography.com/people/victor-lustig-20657385#crimes

Repercussion of Conversation

 How far would you go to support you religion. Many who follow Islam believe that the price of changing your religion is death. In countries where Islam is considered to be the sole religion the percentage of death is high for the people who attempt to switch religions. This thought comes from the hadith, which is a compilation of sayings from the founder of Islam. There is a verse in the Hadith that states, if anyone changes his or her religion he deserves to be killed. This verse is understood and enforced in various ways. In some countries women are detained in a room until they refuse their new religion but the men are still killed. The issues ex-Muslims face in America are somewhat different but can end with the same outcome. Ex-Muslims face the risk of being sent back to their home country, and being stalked or harassed. They could be sent back by the people who are closest to them, people like their families and friends. These former Muslims do not go willingly but are often kidnapped. For example a Saudi princess became a follower of Christ, shortly after a limousine was sent to pick her up from the temporary residence she shared with her ailing mother. Although there has been a plethora of kidnapping along with harassment, no deaths have been reported for converted Muslims. The one thing that I find surprising about the treatment of Ex-Muslims is that there are no reported deaths in the United States. A person would expect to hear about ex-Muslims being murdered by people who have harassed or stalked them. I believe that both parties involved are attempting to avoid legal business by not reporting crimes against ex-Muslims. According to the article converts do not file police reports for fear of being caught not practicing Islam. To change my view on the situation the United States should openly support those who come to this country with the thought of having freedom of religion.

LRJ Prompt 1 Radix malorum est cupiditas, Feb. 4, 2015

To answer his questions concerning a person’s relationship with money he used information from a book, which deals with the relationship between money and life; he also uses obtained from and interview with the book's author Jacob Needleman. According to Needleman, the brilliant people allow money tear them away from anything that is not directly related with money such as, love and personal relationships. I feel that brilliant people tend to lose track of how they became brilliant. I say this because they were brilliant before their riches; the money they have now comes from their brilliance not vice versa. Everyone has certain amounts of money they need to make them happy. Some people feel like the amount of money they have is based off of what they know. These people are addicted to the false feeling of success. Also, they are not content with the hard work that had to put forth but satisfied with the amount of zeros that fulfill their material needs and not what brought them to their success in the first place. As stated before everyone has certain amounts of money they need to make them happy. To me people risk so much because a void they have cannot be filled with money. Needleman also answered Taylor’s question, “how is it so that so many extremely wealthy people seem so unhappy?” Needleman felt that those wealthy unhappy people were not honest with themselves about what money really means to them. He made a valid statement about how people need to be happy before they come in contact with their abundant supply of money. Some wealthy people are unhappy because of how they came into their riches or what they lost to obtain their riches.