Don't Fall For It

Introduction 1 Chapter 1 No One Sells Miracles 5 Goats as Viagra? 7 Radio 9 The Placebo Effect 10 Correlation Does Not Imply Causation 11 Same as It Ever Was 13 Chapter 2 How to Sell Anything 17 The Count 18 Selling the Eiffel Tower 20 Everyone is in Sales 22 Chapter 3 Fast Money 27 The Promise of Huge Returns with Minimal Effort 29 When Trust Goes too Far 32 Do Your Homework 33 Chapter 4 It’s the End of the World as We Know It 39 Cognitive Dissonance 41 The Man Who Walked on Water 43 No One Knows What’s Going to Happen 45 Why Pessimism Sells Better than Optimism 47 The Value of ‘I Don’t Know’ 48 Chapter 5 Sleight of Hand 51 Bad Brad 53 A Magician Reveals His Secrets 56 Chapter 6 When Success Doesn’t Translate 61 Defeated by Decency 62 Don’t Try to Get Rich Twice 66 Chapter 7 When Fraud Flourishes 71 When There’s an ‘Expert’ with a Good Story 71 When Greed is Abundant 73 When Capital Becomes Blind 74 When the Banking Industry Gets Involved 76 When Individuals Begin Taking Their Cues from the Crowd 77 When Markets are Rocking 79 When the Opportunity Presents Itself 80 When Human Beings are Involved 81 When Innovation Runs Rampant 82 Chapter 8 The Siren Song of New Technologies 85 The Railway Napoleon 87 The Media’s Role in a Bubble 90 The Other Side 93 The Silver Lining of a Market Crash 94 Chapter 9 The Seductive Power of FOMO 97 How to Create a Monopoly 98 The Roaring 20s 100 When the Tide Goes Out 102 Not a Ponzi but Close Enough 103 The Seductive Power of FOMO 104 Chapter 10 Type I Charlatan 109 John Law and the Mississippi Company 111 Speculation is a Hell of a Drug 113 Pop Goes the Bubble 115 Type I and Type II Charlatans 116 Chapter 11 Type II Charlatan 121 The South Sea Company 123 Type II Charlatan John Blunt 124 The Bubble Act 127 The Echo Bubble and Dunbar’s Number 128 Chapter 12 Fooled by Intelligence 131 Newton’s Mania 134 The Problem with Smartest People in the Room 135 Why Smart People Make Dumb Decisions 137 Fooling Yourself with Complexity 138 Chapter 13 How Gullible are You? 141 Ponzi versus Bernie 146 The Sacred Relationship 148 Chapter 14 The Easiest Person to Fool 153 Getting Rich versus Staying Rich 156 Shot out of a Cannon 157 The Biggest Fraud of All 158 Conclusion: Six Signs of Financial Fraud 163 1. The Money Manager Has Custody of Your Assets 163 2. There is an Aura of Exclusivity in the Pitch 164 3. When the Strategy is too Complicated to Understand 165 4. When the Story is too Good to Be True 166 5. When the Returns are Ridiculously Good 167 6. When They Tell You Exactly What You Want to Hear 168 Index 171