This desire to get something for nothing has been very costly to many people who have dealt with me and with other con men. . . . When people learn—as I doubt they will—that they can’t get something for nothing, crime will diminish and we shall all live in greater harmony.
—Joseph Weil
Dangling the lure of a free lunch is the con artist’s stock in trade. No man was better at this than the most successful con artist of our age, Joseph Weil, aka “The Yellow Kid.” The Yellow Kid learned early that what made his swindles possible was his fellow humans’ greed. Over the years Weil devised many ways to seduce people with the prospect of easy money. He would hand out “free” real estate—who could resist such an offer?—and then the suckers would learn they had to pay $25 to register the sale. Since the land was free, it seemed worth the high fee, and the Yellow Kid would make thousands of dollars on the phony registration. In exchange he would give his suckers a phony deed. Other times, he would tell suckers about a fixed horse race, or a stock that would earn 200 percent in a few weeks. As he spun his stories he would watch the sucker’s eyes open wide at the thought of a free lunch. Don’t let yourself get lured in by the prospect of easy money. As the Yellow Kid said himself: greed does not pay.
Daily Law: Be suspicious of anyone dangling the lure of something for nothing. Get-rich-quick schemes are scams. The lottery is really a tax on the mathematically illiterate. There are no shortcuts to power.
The 48 Laws of Power
, Law 40: Despise the Free Lunch