The combination of Ponzi's huge personality and the enormous if brief success of his scheme, combined with the tremendous publicity which surrounded it, is ultimately what attached his name to it.
— Mitchell Zuckoff
While researching the book, I used the Freedom of Information Act to request what the military calls Individual Deceased Personnel Files for all the Gremlin Special's passengers and crew.
There's a certain type of sociopathy to many schemers.
We all should respect Chris Stevens, who dedicated his life to trying to improve relations between the Arab world and the western world.
I'm a huge Michael Lewis fan.
I think more and more, in places like Benghazi, in places like Iran, we have to be asking the question, can we trust the local government to protect our people?
It's not that you make a psychopath. They are - more likely, they come out that way, and they show their stripes over time.
No Ponzi schemer tells anyone exactly how it works. The purpose of a Ponzi scheme is to trick people, to take the money and run.
My favorite pre-Ponzi schemer was known as '520 Percent Miller' because he promised 10 percent returns a week, or 520 percent a year. Of course he was just using new investors' money to pay old investors, and soon he was on the lam.
Nathaniel Philbrick's 'In the Heart of the Sea' has rightfully taken its place as a classic for its literary merits. It has a special place in the cannibalism canon as well.
I was researching a different World War II story when I came across an article in the 'Chicago Tribune' from June 1945 that knocked me for a loop. The article explained that a military plane had crashed in an impossibly remote valley of New Guinea that had been nicknamed Shangri-La.
Ponzi and all of his successors tap into a fundamental part of human nature. One part of our brain tells us this is too good to be true. The other side tells us this is too good to miss. The key to any con is getting a mark to tip to the too-good-to-miss side.
Acting on the theory that sometimes luck is better than work, I randomly called several people named Dattilo in Kentucky. All were unfailingly polite, and none knew anything about a major with their last name who died in World War II. I also discovered that more Dattilos lived in Kentucky than I would have imagined.
I wanted to talk face-to-face with as many people as would see me. Some actors were so busy they could only give me an hour on the phone. But my feeling is that if you're actually in the room with them, they get comfortable and you get more.
More people will watch 'Spotlight' than will ever read the 'Globe' series that inspired it.
I need to know everything inside quote marks is true.
There is an interesting parallel between the 'Argo' story and '13 Hours' in that, around the world, we have 285 or so diplomatic outposts and the expectation that the local government will come to our aid if we ever come under attack on the sovereign property of the United States in an embassy.
Most travel disasters turn into something else: a story of survival, a story of bravery, of heroism, sometimes villainy. You just don't know when it starts where it's going to go because they are unexpected events.
We've suffered a 'Ponzification' of the economy in recent years, as bubbles have built up and then burst, and each time we act as though it's the first time.
I know that plenty of folks have issues with Social Security, but I'd urge them to confront it on its own terms. Calling it a Ponzi scheme is misleading and does more to cloud the issue than it does to illuminate it. And yes, I do know that unless changes are made, the current system is unsustainable. But that doesn't mean it's fraud.
For starters, let's dispense with the cheap jokes about cannibalism. That means cracks about giving an arm and a leg - sorry - for a good book on the subject, or similar tasteless - sorry, again - attempts to make the subject more palatable - last one.
Every swindle is driven by a desire for easy money; it's the one thing the swindler and the swindled have in common.
This is not a documentary. Are there essential truths that are captured by this movie? I think unquestionably the answer is yes. Do you have to change certain things to make it work? The book is called '13 Hours'; the movie is two hours long.
I've remained in touch with more than a dozen descendants of Gremlin Special survivors, victims, and rescuers. I treasured my friendship with Earl Walter Jr., the lead paratrooper who jumped into the valley to protect the survivors.
There are very few people whose names come to symbolize their achievement, even if it's a negative achievement.
I'm an ex-'Globe' guy. My friends are depicted in 'Spotlight.'
The State Department has promised they will never have another temporary mission facility like the one in Benghazi that is so lightly protected. But at the same time, history tends to repeat itself here, and so it might not repeat itself in exactly the same way as Benghazi.
As a journalist, you're always worried, 'Did I get the full story?'
New Guinea was sort of a graveyard for planes.
Bob Altman got nothing from the TV series 'M*A*S*H,' and the royalties for the theme song went to his oldest son, Michael, who wrote it as a 15-year-old poet!
When running a Ponzi scheme, how does one avoid enormous, unexpected withdrawals - runs on the bank, so to speak - that would pull back the curtain and reveal a little man blowing smoke? One way would be to attract a core of investors who could be counted on to never withdraw more than a small percentage of principal each year.
Sending a book out into the world is a lot like sending your child to the first day of kindergarten. You hope the other kids play nice and that she makes friends.
