Liars...thieves...

People, well, some people, appreciate a good swindle. (good word that, swindle)

Usually, those people are not the people that get swindled. They're the people who watch from the backside as it's happening, like a magic show. They snicker at the rube who fell for it, even though they would have fallen for the same thing. Like a game of three card Monte, it's tough to beat a guy who has all the cards.

The old saying, "can't cheat an honest man," was actually coined by the old con-men from back in the day...late 1800's, early 1900's. The way they operated back then was to hook a man with a sure thing. The sure thing was always something sketchy..."I know a guy who works at the track - he calls me when the race starts, and tells me who wins. The gambling den gets it's information by telegraph - there's a 2 minute delay between the time the race ends at the track, and the time the gambling house knows who won. We just walk up, place the bet, and it's easy money."

There's usually a small demonstration (or three or four) with low stakes, where the mark finds himself in the middle of a cash generating machine. An honest man, would have nothing to do with this, and even if he'd stuck around after a demonstration or two, he'd have some compunction against continuing. But a normal, greedy man would be hooked. That's when the con-man would say, "My guy's getting the can, he's loosing his job tomorrow. We've only got one more race where we can cash in. Get everything you can!" So the guy goes, invests his life savings into the sure thing, and sure enough, gets cleaned out.

I suppose that's where the real story is...if you're rootin' for the thieves, well, you'd now want to see what they spent their money on. Or if you felt sorry for the rube, I guess you'd want to see either 1) how he picked himself up from being ruined and became an honest man. Or 2) how he picked himself up from being ruined and hunted down the bastards that tricked him, and shot them all in the head. I obviously don't know much about anything, but I'm telling you this, I'd much rather see Bruce Willis in the starring role of #2.