The Gilded Age was known for its charlatans. Health quacks like Kellogg who prescribed corn flakes to stop people from masturbating. Shameless showmen like Barnum who suckered people in with false advertising.
We seem to have entered a new Age of Charlatans. Elon Musk peacocks around like a modern day mix of Edison, Ford and Einstein, when really he makes a shitty, unsafe car. We have the unhinged saga of Mike Lindell. Then there is cryptocurrency.
Crypto seems very much like a Ponzi scheme, in the sense that it is a thing of no intrinsic value that rises in value because some new sucker wants to buy it. As long as there is a new sucker to buy it, the value rises, but eventually you run out of suckers and have to advertise during the Super Bowl.
I remain worried that crypto will prompt a financial crisis and financial crises have long, punishing tails. I do hope there are some efforts to limit the exposure of financial institutions to nonsense like NFTs or Bitcoin, but that is likely a fool's hope.
Meanwhile, Trump's new social media site has a fee of $4.95... A WEEK!
Musk and crypto and Trump all have their fanbois out there making stupid decisions based on their feels and vibes, but as long as they don't trash things for the rest of us, I guess they can be suckers all they want.
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