Get Rich Quick

Over the weekend I watched "American Greed" for the first time. It is a show that runs on CNBC. The show tells of cases of scams and frauds that schemers create to make money fast. The episode I saw consisted of two scams. The first took place in the early 2000s in Colorado. The second was also placed in the early 2000s, however this was mostly in Hawaii and Washington.

Norman Schmidt first began Colorado Holdings LLC. in Denver. He claimed to investors that he had access to an elite group where he could make them millions. He promised a 10% return every month of whatever sum they initially paid him. He said that billionaires like George Bush Sr had made his fortune there. This group does not exist however. In the end it was 56 million dollar Ponzi scheme. Norman was characterized as moving from one "get-rich-quick" scheme to the next. But isn't that what we all hope for, some way to make it big with as little cost as possible. Isn't that the American dream? As Chuck Reinhardt, Chief Investigator of Colorado's Division of Securities, said "[the investment] may sound odd, but you really want to believe."

James Lull of Hawaii started out as a mortgage broker. He made is quick money by promising high returns to investors who create bridge deals. If a person with a low credit score were to step into his office and the loan was relatively simple (like a credit card loan) he used the investors' money to make the loan. The investors then received 12% interest on what they invested. Soon it spiraled out of control. Lull had more investors than he had people to loan to, so he used the money to finance his own rare collectables. He purchased rare coins and arrowheads. He loved opals and often bought opal and ivory encrusted billiard sticks. He also wanted more. 


The get-rich-quick desire is most prevalent in those who create the schemes and scams, but the investors and victims share a little of the same lust. To make money without having to work a minute, that seems to be the goal. What you have is never enough, you just want a little more. The original $25,000 Claire Mortimer invested in Lull's scheme wasn't enough, she wanted more. 

The "Ethos" of the Open Road

The automobile has made for itself a place in the American’s heart. As oil scholar Dan Peterson says, “there is a freedom that promotes adventure with the car”. Americans love the “freedom” of open road stretching ahead of them; they could go anywhere. 


As Don DeLillo said in his satirical novel on American culture, White Noise, it’s “the whole ethos of the road”(67). The “ethos” or spirit of the open road has enticed America for decades. Since the pilgrims we have had a "manifest destiny" to travel to undiscovered places. 
The automobile has opened routes for us that the pilgrims never even imagined. In almost every American's heart there is a desire to discover new and exciting things that lurk around the corner. 


What could possibly be a large enough force to stop Americans from driving, to force Americans to drive 100 billion fewer miles than the year before (Steiner, 29)? 

            It takes a lot to change a routine that is ingrained in the American way. Putting America back to work and Americans caring for the world around them created a gradual change to the automobile culture that exists in the United States. A sudden shift like the acute rise in gas prices proved to create a larger but shorter change. 

Public transportation is on the rise again though. Our dependency on gas to fuel our way of life has to change. Chris Steiner agrees, “people have to change the way they live” (Steiner 2012). As oil in the world diminishes American lives will encounter a major shift in their routine. Energy efficient modes of transportation will come, but will it be enough? 2008’s boom in public transportation showed that its possible for Americans to change routines that are deeply ingrained in American society.

Traffic Clogs Aren't Pressing

While some say that the public took mass transportation because of traffic, it was not a serious force behind the mass transit jump because policies like congestion pricing were not passed. While a study done in 2005 by the Texas Transportation Institute said that traffic caused “drivers 4.2 billion lost hours and 2.9 billion gallons of wasted fuel,” traffic has always been an issue since the rise of cars (Bellitteri, 51). The realization of lost fuel due to traffic along with 2008’s pricey gasoline may have pushed some commuters to mass transit, but traffic alone was not a serious causation of the spike in ridership. 


If traffic were a pressing issue, then policies like congestion pricing would have been passed to solve the traffic. Congestion pricing is the idea that people can be tolled more while driving on major highways during the busiest times of the day. Though some policy makers have pushed to have congestion pricing passed, it has more often failed than succeeded, which shows that traffic was not incredibly important to the people or more of the public would have pushed to have it implemented. 


Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City pushed to have congestion pricing. New York City, being the largest metropolis in the United States, has a lot of traffic. Bloomberg’s plan for congestion pricing failed, however (Neuman). If a policy such as congestion pricing fails in the largest city in America, traffic congestion must not be a pressing issue and thus not a large force behind the rise in public transit.


Has traffic pushed you to ride mass transit?

Gas Rationing of the 70s

Gas rationing in the 1970s created a similar public transportation boom to 2008 because fewer people were buying gas and took public transit instead. In the 70s, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries made an embargo on America because the United States backed Israel in the Yom Kippur War. Gas rationing of the 1970s is similar in “the ripple effect” it created (Crisp). First, fewer Americans could acquire gas, so then more people began to ride mass transit. 

As seen in the figure at the right, which shows the amount of riders from 1955 to 2010, the rationing caused a major spike in ridership during the mid 70s. However, there were some differences with the embargo of the 70s and the rising gas prices of 2008. The skyrocketing prices of gas in 2008 were from a large demand for oil. It was “billions more people…realizing their economic ambitions” (Steiner, 17). When these people pursued their “economic ambitions” they tended to need gas or oil to fuel their projects. Despite the different reasons for people taking the route away from the gas pump, it still resulted in a boom of mass transit. While jobs and environmental consciousness created an upturn, the high gas prices pushed millions more people to mass transit.


How is this similar to 2008's gas prices and jump in mass transit?