Financial schemes, scams, and outright swindles are nothing new, with examples dating back hundreds of years, including the Tulip  speculative bubble of the early 1600's, and the South Sea Scandal of 1720. 

Fast forward to more recent times, to Bernie Madoff's gigantic Ponzi scheme, which was discovered in 2008, earned him a 150 year federal prison sentence, to the sub-prime mortgage crisis that spurred a severe economic recession between 2007 and 2010.

With all that in mind, I recently read a fascinating opinion piece in The Washington Post, about a type of investment that has been pretty popular over the past few years, but has now fallen out of favor, because at its heart; a SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company) is based more on an idea of a way to make money, than on actual, provable, rock-solid investing data. As a result, many companies that have gone from privately held, to publicly traded as a result of this type of financing, have gone belly-up, including one in our area; Lordstown Motors.

But still, some investors have cashed in, or at least, are still trying to do so, because while SPACs are on the decline and harder to do because of some new rules just recently put into place by the SEC; they're still legal.

So, what exactly could this mean to the average investor? Does it only impact famous people like former President Trump, for example who is in the process of taking his Truth Social media platform public through a SPAC, or could it possibly trickle down to the likes of regular folks who have their retirement money IRA and 401K accounts?

I'm of course, no Wall Street expert, so I had to call in help from somebody who actually is one; David Pelleg, who teaches Finance at Kent State University.

Listen now to our conversation about SPACS, scams, and all manner of financial wheeling and dealing, which often makes traders rich, and investors sorry.

David Pelleg, Finance Professor, Kent State University