Shafted!

Good karma wears sensible shoes

- By Ian Kirke

Being deceived, duped, conned, or shafted isn’t pleasant. But if you have been you are in damn good company. In 30 BC, according to Plutarch, Cleopatra misled her protector Epaphroditus and committed suicide. Prime Minister Anthony Eden was duped by Harold Macmillan during the Suez Crisis of 1956 resulting in the latter getting the top job, although to be fair Macmillan was simultaneously deceived by his wife Lady Dorothy Cavendish who was literally being shafted by Conservative grandee Robert Boothby. In 1967 a comprehensive review stateside concluded that Harry S. Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson had both deceived the American people about the Vietnam War. Even when a shyster has a surname with red flags and yellow flares erupting around it you would think that people would be savvier, although the 4,800 investors who were defrauded out of an estimated $64.8 billion believed that Bernie Madoff had their best interests at heart. Although on this occasion the judge had a different take on the matter and sentenced him to 150 year’s incarceration in 2009.